The Hexagon
by White-Knight-1988
Summary: 5 years ago, the only thing I could see myself doing for the rest of my life was taken from me. Too bad I was never the type of person to do what other people say. This is my story, the story of the secret Ranger organization you've never even heard of...
1. Prologue: The Letter

_**The Hexagon**_

_**Prologue: The Letter**_

**_Summary: __5 years ago, the only thing I could see myself doing for the rest of my life was taken from me. Too bad I was never the type of person to do what other people say. This is my story, the story of the secret Ranger organization you've never even heard of, and the story of the end of the world.  
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**_Original Posting Date: January 25, 2010_**

_**--**_

To whom it may concern:

If you're reading this, it means that the worst has happened and Earth's very last lines of defense have fallen. Soon the planet will be completely overtaken. What little human life that remains will be captured and sold as slave labor on some desolate, third-class system, while Earth's conquerors drain the planet of its resources, both natural and manufactured.

Why am I telling you this now? The answer is simple: so that you may fully understand just how we ended up in this terrible position; and, hopefully, so that you will also be able to understand exactly what it is that needs to be done to stop it.

Of course, to understand the latter, you must first understand the former. It is here that I will explain everything, starting with who I am.

My name is Tommy Oliver and I am a Power Ranger. Or at least I was. By the time these documents reach civilization I, as well as the people I served with, will have long since been captured or killed.

Now, as I said, before I begin describing the events that led us to this point, I would first like to tell you a little bit about myself. In the early nineteen-nineties, I moved from the city of Scottsdale, Arizona, to a coastal, Southern California town called Angel Grove during my freshman year of high school. Unbeknownst to me and my family at the time, Angel Grove had recently begun to encounter regular attacks from a sorceress known as Rita Repulsa, who hailed from the planet Gamma Vile and acted with but one goal: the total destruction of Earth.

If you will allow me just a moment here, I find it necessary to explain how Rita's presence began in the first place.

Some ten-thousand years ago, an event known to its survivors simply as the "Great War" took place across hundreds of systems and dozens of galaxies. One side, that of Rita Repulsa, sought only to conquer and destroy as many worlds as possible; her opposition came in the form of an intergalactic wizard from the planet Eltar called Zordon, who fought in the effort of achieving peace amongst the various systems and their inhabitants.

After nearly a century's worth of fighting, it became apparent to the leaders of both sides that neither would ever be able to achieve absolute victory. It was with those thoughts in mind that a meeting was arranged between Rita and Zordon, both sides presumably hoping that the other had been damaged enough to warrant severe concessions. However, this was not the case.

Just as they were steadfast in their refusal to surrender in battle, so too were they in their refusal to negotiate. With no other options in sight, it was determined that a simple game of chance would decide the outcome of their war. A two-colored disc was to be flipped no more than three times: Rita was given the black side, Zordon the white. The first to have the disc land twice on their designated side would be declared the winner.

When Zordon won, however, Rita hastily attempted one last struggle to prevent her permanent banishment into the deepest reaches of the universe. It was in this struggle that Rita was able to lock Zordon in a time warp: he became no more than a gaseous head, only able to project himself to others through the use of an energy tube. With no bodily form, he was drained of most of his magical abilities, but was still able to use some of what remained to encapsulate Rita and her minions before sending the space dumpster to the edge of the universe.

For nine-thousand years the capsule containing Rita and her forces floated unmolested through space. Then, a millennium ago, while traveling through our very own Milky Way Galaxy, the capsule became impacted on Earth's moon. Some say it was chance that it ended up there; I disagree and you will soon understand why. Still, it was there, on the Moon, that the capsule remained for another thousand years, unseen and untouched by any living being.

As it seems is so often the case, though, technological development and discovery is both our greatest ally and our greatest enemy. In the year nineteen ninety-three, two American astronauts discovered the capsule during a moon exploration and, in their ignorance, opened it, thereby releasing Rita and her henchmen.

Had it not been for Zordon's already-established presence on Earth, the planet would have been doomed from the moment Rita had exited her capsule and declared her intentions to destroy the first planet she set sight on. Fortunately, Zordon was prepared for this, and this is why I say it was no mere chance that caused Rita's space dumpster to crash on the Moon. Every resource that Zordon had access to was housed in the vanguard he had built on the outskirts of Angel Grove —and had been for over ten millennia — almost as if he knew that one day Rita would eventually attack the Earth.

She did, of course, and her first attack was on Angel Grove, the same town that Zordon chose his team of Power Rangers. As requested of his robotic assistant, Alpha-5, five teenagers with "attitude" were summoned via teleportation to the Command Center that Zordon had established following Rita's capture.

These five teenagers were given great power, harnessing the abilities of dinosaurs and similar prehistoric creatures through small gold coins to become an elite fighting team known to all as the Power Rangers. Jason Scott, Zachary Taylor, Billy Cranston, Kimberly Hart, and Trini Kwan were chosen as Earth's defenders, the Red, Black, Blue, Pink, and Yellow Rangers respectively. And though they did not all initially accept this responsibility readily, they quickly molded into their newfound roles with grace, becoming a nearly unstoppable force in the war against Rita.

Until I came along, that is.

You see, there were actually six coins, one of which just so happened to be in the possession of Rita. Why she chose me, of all people, I still do not know, but it was on my first day in Angel Grove that Rita captured me, placed me under a mind-controlling spell, and gave me the sixth coin, thus turning me into her own personal warrior: the evil Green Ranger.

With more power than the five Rangers combined, I began my assault on Earth, starting with the elimination of the Power Rangers. I nearly succeeded, too, and I'm positive that I would have if not for Jason. Eventually he was able to break the spell that controlled me and, after much persuasion from him and the other Rangers, convinced me to join them in their fight against Rita. Unfortunately, my place on the team was not to be a permanent one.

A cursed object known as the Green Candle was slowly draining away my powers as the wax melted, forcing me to sit out many a battle that I wanted so desperately to be a part of. As the candle grew closer to burning out completely, Jason valiantly attempted to retrieve the candle just before the last of it melted away, but he was unable to do so. I was soon powerless, an ordinary civilian just like you, albeit one who had certainly done some extraordinary things.

Though I had only held the Power for a very short period of time, I felt incredibly lost without it, almost as if the only guiding force in my life had been violently ripped away from me without cause or concern to how it affected me personally. I became distant from my friends; schoolwork and karate were no longer priorities in my life; in short, I was a shell of my former self.

It was not until several weeks later that I suddenly found myself back in the Command Center at Zordon's request. The other Rangers had all been stripped of their Power Coins by Rita's general, the winged Titan called Goldar, leaving them as powerless as I was. Yet, according to Zordon, I was their last hope.

How was this even remotely possible? I wondered. I did not understand in the slightest. I was, after all, completely powerless. Or so I thought.

Using quite a bit of his own energy, Zordon recharged my Power Coin, enough so that I was able to retrieve the stolen coins from Goldar and return the team to full strength. In the weeks and months that followed, I was subjected to numerous tests in an effort to ensure that my re-energized powers did not impact me negatively, as well as having to undergo periodical recharges from Zordon, but, for the time being anyway, I was part of the team again.

Soon, though, my Green Ranger powers were gone again, this time for good and with no hope of bringing them back. Just prior to this twist of fate, a new villain had arrived to combat the Power Rangers. Lord Zedd had swiftly emerged to take Rita's place due to her continuous failures in destroying us and the planet, and immediately made an impact from the moment he arrived…he was also obsessed with leaving me powerless. As I just stated, he obviously succeeded in his effort; I was a civilian again, and once more the lack of the Power in my life had left me withdrawn from everything I knew and loved.

I wanted so desperately to be a Ranger again, to fight alongside my friends and the young woman I had been infatuated with from the moment I had laid eyes on her that first day at school. Sitting here now, I can't even begin to imagine what I would have done if not for Kimberly. She was a constant stream of support, and while I wanted nothing more at the time than to push her way, in retrospect I know that I would have truly been lost without her.

Just as I was becoming adjusted to civilian life again, though, I found myself back in the Command Center; or, to be a bit more specific, a secret chamber within the Command Center that none of the Rangers knew about. As Zordon explained to me that day, Lord Zedd was becoming too powerful for the five Rangers to fight alone. The time for a new and more powerful Ranger had arrived, and I was to be that Ranger.

Using a mystical power source known as the Light of Goodness, Zordon and Alpha were able to forge a new Power Coin for me, a coin unable to be tampered with by the forces of evil. I was back again, this time with a new color and a new role on the team. I was now the White Ranger and new leader of the Power Team. To make things even better, Kimberly and I soon became "official," or as official as a couple can be while still in high school.

Over the course of the next few years, the team lost and gained new members, as well as new powers. When Jason, Zack, and Trini made the decision to attend the World Peace Conference as teen ambassadors from the United States, three new allies stepped into their place: Rocky Desantos, Adam Park, and Aisha Campbell were all excellent additions to the team.

It was near the end of our junior year when Kimberly decided to leave the team to pursue her lifelong dream of representing her home country on the international level in the sport of gymnastics. And damn, was she good. While it definitely hurt to lose her, obviously more so than with the others who had left, I knew her position on the team was in good hands; Katherine Hillard was an excellent replacement, and also a future girlfriend, but that's another story entirely.

Shortly after Kimberly's departure, Lord Zedd and Rita were able to do what they had been trying to for nearly three years. The Command Center was destroyed and we, the Rangers, were all powerless. Our last hope, the Zeo Crystal — the individual shards of which we had traveled through the very fabric of time and space itself to recover — had been lost in the destruction of the Command Center. Everything was coming to an end, even before our newest member, Tanya Sloan, had been able to assume the mantle left to her by Aisha, whose quest for her shard of the Zeo Crystal had led her to a village in Africa that needed her aid much more than we did.

Miraculously, though, we were able to recover the Zeo Crystal. With new colors, powers, and Zords, we were as ready as ever to resume our fight with Lord Zedd and Rita. And we would have, if not for the newfound presence of an even stronger enemy: the Machine Empire, headed by the sentient robot King Mondo, his wife Queen Machina, and their son Prince Sprocket.

We battled the Machine Empire fiercely for nearly a year, with no apparent end in sight. In fact, if not for a little help from our old enemies, Zedd and Rita, the fight against the Machine Empire may have waged on eternally.

The end, however, was still nowhere in sight. The Machine Empire had barely been destroyed when the space pirate Divatox arrived on Earth, along with yet another new Ranger. A child at the local orphanage, twelve year-old Justin Stewart, became the Blue Turbo Ranger when an unfortunate back injury forced Rocky into an early retirement.

This new team did not last long, though. With Zordon and Alpha-5 having returned to Eltar just after the shift into Turbo, it was the determination of our new mentor — an Inquirian named Dimitria — that the time had come for the older generation of Rangers to pass on their powers for good. Four new Rangers were chosen in our steed: Carlos Vallerte, Cassie Chan, Ashley Hammond, and Theodore Jay (T.J. for short) Jarvis Johnson soon replaced Adam, Katherine, Tanya, and I respectively.

According to Dimitria — who had a tendency to speak only in questions, but somehow found a way to tell us this normally — we had served long enough. It was time for us, the older generation of Rangers, to move on and, in her words, "find ourselves," as well as what we wanted to do with the rest of our lives. Essentially, we were being put out to pasture.

This was fine with the other Rangers, all of whom had begun this process long before our forced retirement. I, on the other hand, was still as lost as I was the first time that my powers had been taken away from me. While I had acquired numerous hobbies over the years — everything from karate to professional stock car racing — nothing had ever impacted me so much that I wanted to spend the rest of my life doing it.

Nothing except being a Ranger, anyway; and that is where this story officially begins.

From here on out, everything you read will be a detailed account of my life up to now. You will learn of my personal life as well as my workings with other Ranger teams, leading up to the ultimate development of an underground organization that I created called Project Hexagon. It is because of Project Hexagon that we find ourselves in this position to begin with. Of course, without Project Hexagon, none of us would have even lived long enough to make it this far, so I guess that's the trade-off.

Again, you may be asking yourself why I am telling you these things. And again, it is because you and you alone are capable of stopping it, but you must first have a crystal clear understanding of exactly what it is that you are dealing with before you will even be able to fathom doing so.

As the planet falls around me, I find that I must leave you with this: It is my profound hope that this document reaches you in time, and that you are able to do what must be done in order to protect the Earth. The planet is in your hands now. Defend it with honor, and may the Power protect you always.

I am, most truly yours,

_Thomas James Oliver_

_Commander_ — _Project Hexagon_


	2. The Path Less Taken

_**The Hexagon**_

_**Chapter One – The Path Less Taken**_

_**Original Posting Date: February 3, 2010**_

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It was September of Nineteen ninety-seven when retirement was forced upon my teammates and me. At Dimitria's request, I left the team to "find myself." (As an aside, anytime I refer to this I will always quote "find myself." Sarcasm, seeing as how I think it was utter bullshit that we were forced to leave considering all we had given to the Rangers).

Anyway, as I was saying, I left the team to "find myself." This took me all of three months.

As you now know, I raced stock cars on a local professional circuit, and I continued doing so for another two months after my retirement. But everyone was gone — Adam and Tanya to Los Angeles to pursue careers in the entertainment industry, and Katherine to London where she attended the Royal Ballet Academy — and my love of the sport soon followed when I realized I didn't have a single friend at home to share it with.

By that point, I had lost two girlfriends to nothing more than physical distance; my best friend, Jason, was on the other side of the country studying criminal justice; and while the nearest ex-Ranger to me, Rocky, was only twenty miles away in Stone Canyon, he was now busy running his own karate school. And when I say nearest ex-Ranger to me, I mean the nearest in my age bracket. Justin was still in Angel Grove, but as a nineteen year-old man, there wasn't much that I could do with a fourteen year-old high school kid. He certainly became a valuable asset to the Hexagon in later years, though, but you'll learn about that later.

Now, back to me; at that point in my life, I was, for lack of a better word, lost.

Of course, that's why Dimitria wanted me to "find myself", now wasn't it? The problem with that was that I had already found myself; I just hadn't realized it yet. The truth is that I had found myself the very first time I stood side-by-side with the other Rangers in the fight against Rita.

But while the others may have been content to allow their place as Rangers to become mere memories, I was not prepared to do so. Being a Ranger had meant everything to me for so long, I just could not allow it to become a footnote in my life. Being a Ranger _was_ my life.

And so I decided in November, on the night before Thanksgiving, that I would dedicate my life to the Rangers and their struggles, for I knew that there would be many in the years to come. Rita's initial presence on Earth, it seemed, had opened up a continuing influx of evil beings intent on conquering the planet. When one enemy was defeated, a new one simply showed up in its place in what soon became a repetitious series of events.

I still remember the day I chose my future's path. It was a rainy day, as it had been for the last two. The sun had barely been seen at all in the three days since the unthinkable had happened; Divatox had not only destroyed the Power Chamber — and the Turbo powers themselves in the process — but another, even more sinister being, Dark Specter, had succeeded in capturing Zordon and was slowly draining him of his powers.

Though young Justin stayed behind, the remaining, and now powerless, Turbo Rangers bravely raced into space to find Zordon. It was this choice, a choice that I did not even make, that drove me to my decision. If four powerless teenagers were willing to traverse the depths of space to save a man they barely even knew, there was just no way that I could sit back and do nothing.

No, I would not go in search of Zordon. The life of a standing Ranger was no longer mine. However, I knew that I could do more than what I was currently doing, which, in retrospect, wasn't a whole hell of a lot.

When the rain finally stopped the day after Thanksgiving, I drove to the outskirts of Angel Grove and hiked the two miles uphill to where the Command Center had once been. It was my intention to find some kind of entrance to the Power Chamber, or whatever it was that remained of it anyway. Unfortunately, my cause soon seemed to be a lost one.

I spent hours searching the desert cliffs, pressing rock faces and moving stones in search of some sort of a secret entrance, but I could find nothing. In my heart, I knew I was missing something. Zordon had a backup plan for everything; there was no way this was the end.

Or was it? Maybe I wasn't supposed to find anything. Maybe Dimitria had been right. Maybe my destiny lay outside the Ranger world.

No, I told myself. I refused to believe that Zordon would turn his back on me at my time of greatest need. Yes, that is perhaps the most selfish thing you will read in this account, but that was how exactly how I felt at the time. I did not care that Zordon needed help far more than I. I felt abandoned, and abandoned people often have the tendency to blame their problems on those around them.

Hardheadedly, I pressed on. In the end, it was my stubbornness that seemed to guide the way for me. In a fit of anger, I smashed my fist into the rocky face of a cliff and began to walk away, refusing to show any sign of pain from my momentary lapse of stupidity even though my hand throbbed violently.

It was then that the ground suddenly began to tremble around me.

The ground quickly split in half from there, and soon I was freefalling through a wide pit of darkness with no apparent end in sight. After nearly two minutes of this, I saw ground again. Surprisingly, my landing was quite soft for what I quickly estimated to be a nearly eleven-thousand foot fall. It was quite like a trampoline actually; absorbing me and shooting me back up multiple times until I could control my body enough to stop.

Once I was on my feet, the ground immediately became solid, and my first instinct became defending myself. Though I had come here with pure intentions, there was no guarantee that I had ended up in this position by pure means. Malevolence, unfortunately, always had to be considered whenever something strange happened to occur in the Ranger world.

It did not take long for it to become apparent that this was not the case, though. A short distance away was a single, small spray of light that seemed to come from no real source. It was simply _there_, illuminating what looked like a steel door.

I approached cautiously and found that it was indeed a door, and one that was rather easy to open at that. I then stepped through the threshold and into a long, narrow, dimly lit hallway. The door closed behind me without aid, followed immediately by a very loud rumbling from outside, and then an even louder crash. Curiously, I pulled open the door to find that the opening in the cliff had now been sealed once more; there was only one way I could go now, and so I continued down the hallway.

I don't remember how long I walked exactly, only that it seemed like the hallway, with its sometimes sporadic and sometimes frequent turns, would never come to an end. Alas, anything with a beginning eventually has an end, including this particular hallway.

Where it ended, oddly enough, was no surprise at all. At the place where the hallway stopped, a deep and rocky cavern continued in its place. To the left was what looked like a wall of green slime, but I knew better.

Knowing that this vortex would take me into whatever remained of the Power Chamber, I walked through it without hesitation and found exactly what I was looking for.

While the Power Chamber was certainly not the way I remembered it, it was not nearly the mess I was expecting to find. Truth be told, there was no debris at all. In fact, aside from the wide blast door on the east wall and the Zeo-era suits that now lined the west wall, there was nothing else in the entire room except for a large oaken table that stood at the heart of the room, and atop which rested two moderately sized wooden crates.

Unfortunately, I quickly found myself in yet another predicament. The crates were nailed shut and I was not about to take the risk of forcibly breaking them open without knowing what their contents were.

Deciding that my only option would be to carry the crates to my truck, I walked over to the blast door and prayed that reaching my truck would not be another quest in itself. To the left of the door was a single red button that I hastily pressed; the door slid open, revealing a short hallway with a staircase to the left that led to yet another blast door. It was when I opened this second door and saw where I was that I outwardly cursed my own stupidity.

I was at the very bottom of the mountain itself, staring at my pickup truck parked no more than twenty or thirty feet away. In utter disbelief, I walked outside and examined the rock face that concealed this entrance into the Power Chamber.

I could not believe that I had not realized what it was as soon as I had parked next to it. There was a spray of vibrant green ivy on either side of the wall; even I knew that a wall of ivy like this did not just naturally occur on a desert cliff.

Yet, it had fooled me. Perhaps Zordon had known that it would. I've often wondered just how much about our futures Zordon actually knew. I've always felt it was much, _much_ more than he ever let on, that's for damn sure. We'll come back to that at another time, though.

Moving along…

Ten minutes later I had the crates secured in the bed of my truck and had no trouble moving them into the house seeing as how both of my parents were still at work. I grabbed a hammer from my dad's tool box in the garage and then raced back upstairs, hastily removing the nails from the first crate until I was able to remove its lid.

My brow immediately furrowed as I peered inside the crate. It appeared to be piled high with nothing more than documents. I picked up a stack and began to flip through them: some had pictures; some had writing; some had writing in languages I had never even seen before; and some were a combination of the three. Yet somehow I knew what they were, or at least had a general idea of what they were.

What I now had in my possession were a combination of blueprints, instruction manuals, and material lists for a number of Ranger-related devices. Again, it was as if Zordon had known I would come looking for these things, the very things I needed to begin my work.

Eager to see what else he had left me, I returned the documents to the crate and hastily removed the lid from the other container, only to discover that there was very little inside. In fact, the crate held but two objects: one, a small oaken box with a simple latch lock; the other, a single sheet of yellowing parchment. I removed the paper first and read the short, yet quite personal note.

_Though your discovery is a great one, your journey has only just begun,_ it read. _The power to do great things is now at your disposal. Use it wisely. _

_May the Power watch over you forever,_

_Zordon of Eltar_

My eyes were slightly misted, knowing in my heart that Zordon had done all of this with me in mind. He had known that I would come back, probably because I always had before. Aside from Billy, I was the only member of his first team that had never left by choice, and alone, the only one who had never even considered leaving the Rangers; I was the only one he could trust with something this big.

With a small smile, I set the parchment aside and lifted the smaller box out of the crate. It opened with surprising ease, the lock posing no sort of challenge at all. If I had been confused by the documents initially, I can only imagine the bewildered expression on my face when I saw the five pairs of Zeonizers, the instruments my teammates and I had used to become Zeo Rangers. I was almost certain they had been destroyed in Divatox's attack on the Power Chamber, but clearly that was not the case.

Before I had even realized what I was doing, my Zeonizers were strapped around my wrists and I was running downstairs, yelling out for my parents just to make sure they weren't home. Satisfied that they weren't, I returned to my room and silently approached the mirror that hung over my dresser.

I had to know.

Thrusting my closed fists in front of me, I shouted, "It's Morphin' Time!" One at a time, my arms went above my head only to be swung simultaneously to either side. I then brought my arms back together, connecting my Zeonizers in a "t" fashion. "Zeo Ranger Five, Red!" I yelled, closing my eyes as I felt the Power wash over me the instant I had completed the call.

When I reopened my eyes a moment later, I was fully morphed, a wry grin on my face as I stared at the red-clad, helmeted man in the mirror. For the first time in months, everything was starting to make sense again.

From there, I spent the next couple of days sifting through the many different documents, finding everything from instructions on creating a basic energy scanner, to Zord blueprints, to designs for a primitive teleportation system that Zordon seemed to have expanded on quite a bit over the years. Though I was no expert — Billy would have been an amazing asset here — it looked as if Zordon had started with a network of individual portals located throughout a specific region that had somehow evolved into the system we had used. While there were no outlines for a direct teleportation system like ours, I imagined the specs for these portal networks would come in handy one day down the line.

After the documents had all been thoroughly examined, though, I soon found myself at yet another standstill. Where did I go from here? I alone did not have the capability to do that which I knew needed to be done; neither financially nor from an education standpoint. I had made quite a bit of money racing stock cars, but not nearly enough to finance a project like this; and while I had been a top student in my graduating high school class, I had nothing in the way of a college education, and college was the only place where I could acquire the basic knowledge that I needed to move forward with my plans.

It was with those thoughts in mind that I enrolled at Angel Grove Community College for the spring of Nineteen ninety-eight semester, and soon after that began searching for a place to start building my base of operations. What that would end up being, I obviously did not yet know, but I will say that I had some pretty far-fetched ideas running through my head; some of these ended up coming to fruition in one way or another, but most were tossed away once I realized what I was working with.

By the time the spring semester had reached its end, I had found the perfect location, three hours away in a town called Reefside. The house was everything I needed: secluded from civilization on five acres of forest land, with a basement that had more than enough space to house whatever projects arose in the foreseeable future.

I moved in that summer, but I still did not have the necessary resources to do anything more productive than hypothesize. I needed help, but there was no one I could turn to. Billy was the only one I knew who could break these documents down into something feasible, but he was hundreds of thousands of miles away on Aquitar.

Instead, I transferred to the University of Reefside, spent my summer furnishing the house and reinforcing the basement walls with steel, and tried to maintain the hope that something (or someone) helpful would present itself. And it soon did. Though, in retrospect, I almost wish it wouldn't have.

Everything I felt like I needed to do was predicated on the fact that Zordon had been, and still was, imprisoned by the United Alliance of Evil, a sinister group of villains combining all those that my teammates and I had battled, as well as their leader, Dark Specter, and an evil queen called Astronema. I was doing these things only as a backup plan in case the worst happened.

Then the worst happened.

It had been the day before Thanksgiving the year prior when I made the decision to follow this path. One year to the date, my future became cemented forever. This was also the day that I stopped believing in coincidences.

I was planning on visiting my parents in Angel Grove for the Thanksgiving holiday, and was in the middle of packing a duffel bag that evening when a sound I had not heard in quite some time filled my bedroom. I recognized at once the six-tone chime of the wrist communicator that we, the Rangers, had used to communicate with Zordon and Alpha in the Command Center, as well as each other when we were not together.

My heart began to race against my chest as I ran to the nightstand next to my bed and opened the topmost drawer where my communicator lie, flashing and still chiming, right next to my Zeonizers, atop an old high school yearbook. Confusion, fear, excitement…I was an insane mix of extreme emotion as I shakily raised the communicator to my lips and pressed the side button.

"Th-this is Tommy," I murmured hesitantly.

"Tommy, I'm glad you answered," said the voice of a male I had never heard before. I could detect an immediate hint of somberness in his tone, though.

"Who is this?"

"My name is Andros," he replied. "I'm a fellow Ranger."

At this point, I was not so sure. Obviously, this person knew that I was a former Ranger, but that did not necessarily mean that he was one as well. Again, caution is always best when approaching something strange in the Ranger world.

"How do I know you're telling me the truth?" I asked.

"I can prove it to you, if you'd like," answered Andros.

Before I could reply, however, there was a tap on my bedroom window. Scooping up my Zeonizers, I hastily strapped them on as I approached the window, pulling away the curtains and nearly having a heart attack in the process.

Standing…no, _floating_, outside my window was a fully morphed Red Ranger on some kind of jet propelled glider. Having seen them on the news a few times, I recognized the uniform at once as those of the Space Rangers, four of whom I knew to be our Turbo replacements. Deciding that I was safe — but still ready to morph at a moment's notice — I opened the window.

"Would the front door have been more practical?" the Red Ranger asked.

"If I had neighbors, maybe," I said with something of an awkward chuckle. Doing a quick look around to make sure my room was relatively clean — something it had a notorious habit of not being — when I was satisfied that it was, I then returned my attention to the Red Ranger and asked, "So, uh, do you want to come in and tell me what's going on?"

The Red Ranger merely nodded and then launched into an effortless front-flip through my window, de-morphing upon landing. Staring at his back, had it not been for having already heard his voice, I would have had no idea that he was a man. His hair was longer than mine, a mixture of blonde and black, and he wore a gray uniform that hugged his slender figure in a way that deceived any sort of guess at gender.

Then he turned around and I saw that his dark brown eyes were glazed over dramatically, as if he had not slept in many days. Still, he forced himself to smile as he extended his hand and said, "I'm Andros."

"Tommy," I replied, taking his hand and shaking it briefly. "I, uh, I hope you don't mind me being blunt, but what the hell is going on? I haven't been active for almost two years now."

Andros looked down. "There's no easy way to say this, Tommy," he murmured, slowly raising his eyes to face me. "Zordon's gone."

"What?" I questioned, my tone both surprised and condescending, as if he had just said the stupidest thing imaginable.

"He's gone," Andros repeated. "Zordon's dead."

Hearing it again left my legs suddenly weak and I found myself clutching at the banister of my bed frame as I shakily moved into a sitting position on the edge of my mattress. Staring Andros directly in his eyes, I asked, "How do you know?"

"Because —" he started, looking away momentarily, "Because I killed him."

"WHAT?" I roared, on my feet and rushing at Andros like my legs hadn't just given out on me fifteen seconds prior. In a moment's time I had him by the collar of the red shirt he wore beneath his gray jacket, driving him into the nearest wall as hard as I could, pinning him there as I demanded, "Tell me I didn't just hear what I think I heard. TELL ME I DIDN'T JUST HEAR THAT! GODDAMNIT, I'VE NEVER KILLED ANOTHER HUMAN BEING BEFORE BUT THERE'S A FIRST TIME FOR EVERYTHING!"

I could feel the heat in my face and neck, as well as my pulse throbbing rapidly. I couldn't imagine many people not being afraid of me at this point, but Andros did not seem fearful in the slightest. In fact, he was the most collected I had seen him in our short time together.

"I'm sorry, Tommy," he said softly. "I know what he meant to you. Believe me when I tell you that it was not something I wanted to do."

"Then why did you?" I growled through gritted teeth, using every ounce of self-control I had not to rip his head from his neck.

"Because he ordered me to," said Andros. "He said it was the only way to stop the war for good. And he was right. As hard as it is to admit it, he was absolutely right. Rita, Zedd, the Machine Empire, Divatox…they're all gone now."

"No, they're not," I argued ignorantly. "It'd be all over the news if it was."

"No, it wouldn't," Andros countered, shaking his head. "You don't live in Angel Grove anymore, Tommy. And there's something about Rangers that always seems to keep them localized. Unless you're specifically looking for them, you'll never hear anything about them. You should know that more than anyone."

"Yeah," I muttered slowly, finding myself calming down by the moment. "Yeah, you're right."

My grip on Andros's shirt slackened as realization set in and my legs suddenly gave out once more. I was quite surprised when Andros came to my side and helped me into a seated position once more, especially after the way I had just treated him.

"He-he's really gone?" I asked desperately. With a saddened expression, Andros simply nodded. "So you just came here to tell me?"

"No, not just that," said Andros, shaking his head. "I'm here because Zordon requested I come to you personally. I don't know how much you know about our team, but Alpha-6 was onboard the Astro Megaship with us. After I had delivered the news to Alpha and my team that Zordon was gone, Alpha asked to speak with me alone. He had a video recording that Zordon had left with him, to be played for me and only me, and only after he was no longer living."

"What did it say?"

"Not much," Andros answered bluntly, "Just that it had been an honor serving with the Rangers, that he was proud of us all, and that a former Ranger named Tommy Oliver would be in need of my help now that he was gone."

"Your help?" I questioned in confusion. "What could you —?" I paused, thinking silently for a moment until it hit me. My eyes went wide with the realization that, for the last year, Andros had been the person I was looking for.

It would not be happening tonight, though. Andros looked so exhausted he might as well have been dead on his feet, and there was simply no way I was going to do anything else until I had informed my teammates of our loss. They deserved to know, and I, having been team leader for so long, felt that it was my responsibility to deliver this news.

I offered Andros some food and one of the guest rooms for the night, but he politely declined the latter. We spoke for a few more minutes, though it was mostly me listening to him explain everything that had happened with Zordon, and then we said goodbye, with Andros agreeing to return in two week's time.

I wanted to organize a proper memorial service for our fallen mentor, but with the Rangers all spread out across the world, I knew it would be difficult getting everyone together at the same time. As I watched Andros morph, summon what he called his Galaxy Glider, and shoot of into the night, I prayed that the other Rangers would be able to come.

Abandoning my packing completely, I made my way into the kitchen and removed the cordless phone from its dock. It was then, as I slowly dialed a number from memory, that I realized I was alone once more. Alone, I could show my true emotion.

I am not ashamed to admit that I wept at that point; Zordon had meant so much to me for so long. He had always seemed so indestructible, I could have never imagined this day coming in a million years.

Memories came flooding back in an instant, and I soon found myself lost in them. I was not surprised, though, that he had sacrificed himself to save the world, mostly because I had seen him risk his own life for the Rangers on multiple occasions. It was, if nothing else, a fitting end to Zordon's life, one that I knew he would be proud of.

And so I would be, too.

Clearing the emotion from my throat, I wiped my eyes on my sleeve and returned my attention to my phone, which was now issuing a rapid beeping noise from the half-dialed number I had input. I quickly hung up and redialed the number, lifting the phone to my ear as I listened to it ring, hoping he would answer.

After the fourth ring, the line clicked. "Hello?" answered a deep male voice.

"Jason," I murmured slowly, finding it difficult to say anything more.

"Tommy?" Jason replied uncertainly.

Again, I cleared my throat. "Uh, yeah," I said a bit more steadily. "Yeah, it's me."

"What's going on, bro? Everything okay?" he asked.

I let out a single sigh, shaking my head to myself as I replied, "No, bro, it's not. It's — it's Zordon, Jase. He — he's gone."

Jason's reaction was much the same as mine: disbelief at first; followed by a request for answers; and, finally, anger. And, yes, he too wanted to throttle Andros when I told him what the Red Space Ranger had done. But then the quality in Jason that had made him Zordon's first choice to lead the Rangers kicked in, and his concern shifted away from himself and his own emotions, to the other Rangers and what we were going to do about a memorial service.

Soon we were reminiscing, laughing and telling stories about our Ranger days, particularly those that involved Zordon directly. At that moment, I found it a bit weird that we were not controlled by our sadness and grief, but in the days that followed, Jason and I would reach the same conclusion about that conversation: deep down, we both knew that Zordon wasn't truly gone; he had simply _moved on_.

Still, we were both fully aware that this particular point in time wasn't necessarily the best to be joking around and sharing silly anecdotes — though we certainly could have done that for hours. In the end, it was Jason who breached this subject once more.

"Who else have you told?" he asked at one point.

"Just you so far," I answered. "All things considered, I figured you should be the first person I told."

As soon as those words escaped my lips, I prepared myself for Jason to ask the question I had been expecting the whole time: Why had Andros come to me, and not him? I did not want to tell the others — no, not even my best friend — about what I was doing yet; and I could not answer his question without explaining my plans. Fortunately, Jason did not seem to be concerned with this particular nuance.

"Yeah, I appreciate that," he murmured instead, allowing me to breathe an internal sigh of relief. "Look," he went on, "I know you were the leader a lot longer than I was, but would you mind if I called my team at least?"

I let out a small chuckle at that. "Can we compromise?"

"What do you mean?" asked Jason with a laugh of his own.

"I'll trade you Kat for Kim."

Again Jason laughed, this time with much more power behind it. "Really?" he replied. "You want to call Kim? I figured you wouldn't want anything to do with either one of them."

I hated that I began laughing right along with him, but I just could not help myself. My bad luck with Pink Rangers was notorious amongst our circle, so much so that I had either had to learn to laugh at it myself, or walk away from my friends all together. Obviously, I chose the first option.

"Well, Kim was a lot longer ago, so I figured that one would be easier," I answered.

"Alright, alright," Jason conceded with one final chuckle. "I'll take Kat and you can have Kim. When do you want to get everyone together?"

"As soon as possible, bro," I said, moving over to my refrigerator to retrieve a water bottle. "I was thinking sometime next week would probably be good."

"Okay then," said Jason. "I'll call everyone and see what we come up with. I'll be in touch."

"Alright, Jase, take care buddy," I said.

"Later, Tommy," Jason replied, both of us disconnecting from the call at that point.

Setting the phone down on the counter, I opened my water and took a long drink. Once again, I felt alone rather quickly. And maybe that was part of why I had been laughing as well; it definitely helped to take away from the pain.

I was resolved to call everyone by tonight, though, and so I hastily scribbled out a list of everyone and where they lived, wanting to make sure I caught the east coast people first. I had no idea how to get in touch with Aisha — who was in the middle of Nowheresville, Africa — but I was hoping Rocky or Kimberly would know how to contact her. Come to think of it, I didn't know how Jason was going to reach Billy, either. As far as I knew, no one had spoken to him since his transmission to the Power Chamber from Aquitar a few years back.

Maybe this was going to be harder than I had anticipated.

Shaking my head, I picked the phone back up and dialed a new number. As I listened to it ring, I checked the digital clock-radio on my nightstand and saw that it was just past eight o'clock; I doubted I would get an answer. Then, after the fifth ring, I was proven wrong.

The line clicked and a soft, groggy female voice muttered, "Better be good."

I allowed myself the faintest of laughs and then quietly replied, "Hey, Kim, it's me."

"Tommy?" she groaned. "It's eleven-fifteen over here. What's going on?"

"I know. I'm really sorry, Kim," I said. "I wouldn't have called so late if it wasn't really important."

"I know," she murmured. For a moment, I simply closed my eyes and allowed myself to remember what it felt like to listen to her. Talking or singing, I had always loved listening to Kimberly. "So what's up?" she asked. "Is everything okay?"

"Um, no, Kim, it's not," I answered, but as I opened my mouth to deliver the news, I found it much harder to say than I had been expecting. It had come out so easy with Jason, but for some reason I just could not bring myself to tell Kimberly.

"Tommy, tell me what's going on," she pressed on; her tone was as demanding as it was concerned. "I know we're not as close as we used to be, but you know you can tell me anything."

"I know," I said through gritted teeth. I wanted to tell her so badly, but again, I could not. This time, though, I became taken with emotion.

I did not understand this at all. It had taken little to no effort to tell Jason what had happened, so why was it so hard to tell Kimberly? Then again, I had not been able to cry with Jason on the line, yet I was suddenly bawling my eyes out with Kimberly listening, probably wondering what kind of crazy person I had turned into since the last time we had spoken.

"Tommy, please —" she whispered. "Just tell me what's happening. Whatever it is, we'll get through it. I promise."

"It-it's not th-that easy, K-Kim," I hiccoughed, somehow managing to press on, "I-it's Z-Zordon. H-he's gone."

I was met with only silence, the most painful, horrible silence I had ever experienced. I felt like the worst person on Earth, having to deliver such awful news. For nearly two minutes, I said nothing, but eventually I felt the need to break the silence between us. Now that she knew the truth, my leadership instinct had kicked back in, and I quickly let go of my own emotion to attend to my teammate.

"Are you there, Kim?"

"I don't believe you," she said, with much more firmness in her voice than I had been expecting.

"I know you don't," I replied softly. "I didn't believe it either when I first heard about it. But it's true. I'm sorry, Kim, I really am."

She sniffled loudly. "How can this be happening, Tommy?" she whimpered. "It — it's _Zordon_," she added, speaking as though she — just like me, and probably the rest of the other Rangers as well — had believed Zordon to be invincible.

"I know exactly what you mean," I murmured in what I hoped was a reassuring tone.

And from there I moved into the same story that Andros had told me and that I had told to Jason. I forced myself to continue speaking even as she began to cry, my heart aching each time she sobbed into the receiver. At that point in time I would have given up almost anything in the entire world just to be able to take her pain away.

Unfortunately, I could not, and apparently this pain was too much for Kimberly to bear at that moment. I was only halfway through the story when she suddenly cut me off.

"I can't deal with this right now, Tommy. I'm sorry," she half-sobbed. "I'll call you later."

And that was that, the line going dead a second later.

For a brief moment I contemplated calling her back, but then decided against it, understanding that everyone grieved differently and that, for Kimberly, this was her way of grieving. Amongst a myriad of personality quirks, one of the many things that I had learned about Kimberly during our time as a couple was that she would not talk if she did not want to. When she was ready to talk to me, she would call, just like she had said she would.

From there, I spent the next hour or so calling the rest of my former teammates: Adam in Los Angeles — who had suspiciously been with Tanya, though I did not question that at the time; Justin in Angel Grove — who, even though he barely knew Zordon, insisted he wanted to attend any sort of memorial ceremony we had for our fallen mentor; and Rocky in Stone Canyon — who promised he would find a way to get in touch with Aisha, even if it meant scouring the entire continent of Africa himself.

Considering I was now in the possession of my Zeonizer once more, I wasn't above hopping in my Zeo Zord and doing a flyby over Africa myself if it came to it. In this instance, I was sure Zordon would understand my use of the Power for what could have been viewed as "personal gain," something that he had expressly forbidden all his Rangers from doing.

When I had finished with my list of Rangers, I returned the phone to its proper place and then proceeded towards the den at the front of the house, thinking about the nearly half-dozen calls I had just made. There had seemed to be a general consensus of sadness amongst the Rangers — which I had expected — but none more so than with Kimberly — which I was not expecting.

And as I sat down at my computer to email Jason with some of the details I had discussed with the others, I realized why that was.

Kimberly, unlike the rest of us, did not have a particularly good relationship with her parents, specifically her father. While her mother, Caroline, had run off to Paris with a Frenchman named Pierre following her divorce from Kimberly's dad, Ken, it was he, Ken, who had undone their marriage with his frequent roaming into the realm of infidelity.

Zordon — who had always been there for her when her own parents had not or could not — was, at least in Kimberly's eyes, more of a father to her than her own had been.

Again, wishing I could do more while knowing there was nothing that could be done, I finished my email to Jason, sent it on its way, and then was finally able to make my way back to my bedroom. Thanksgiving was tomorrow, after all, and I still had to pack for the trip to Angel Grove. Though I really did not feel much like celebrating anything at all right now, my parents knew nothing of my teenaged exploits as a Power Ranger; thus, it was not like I could simply call them, tell them what had happened, and hope that they understood.

I had sworn an oath to Zordon long ago that my identity as a Power Ranger would remain a secret; active or not, it was a secret I intended on keeping, even if it meant having to spend the next couple of days pretending I was much, much happier than I really was.


	3. Return of an Old Friend

_**Title: The Hexagon**_

_**Chapter Two – Return of an Old Friend**_

_**Original Posting Date: February 13, 2010**_

--

I returned to my home in Reefside the night after Thanksgiving — and a particularly rainy night at that — to find that my answering machine was completely full with messages. Cellular phones in America had only just begun to grow in popularity, but at that point I had yet to jump on the bandwagon, so to say.

It was the thirty-seven messages from different Rangers — Turbo and Space included — however, that convinced me to do so. Apparently, since I had served as leader the longest, everyone was looking to me for answers in regards to what we were going to do for a memorial service and things of that nature, so I needed to be reachable even if I wasn't at home. Plus, if things took off with Andros the way I was hoping they would, I was going to be doing a lot of traveling very soon and a cell phone would certainly come in handy.

Though I did not have a single message from Kimberly, the general consensus I received from the rest of the Rangers was that the following Friday through the weekend would be the best time for everyone, which was mostly what I was expecting. It gave everyone just enough time to organize their personal lives back home before coming to Angel Grove. I had not yet told the others that my plan was to hold the service at the outskirts, a detail I had silently decided while eating Thanksgiving dinner, but doing so was certainly on my list of things to get accomplished starting immediately.

Once I had listened to all the messages, I made my way to my room; deposited my duffel bag atop my bed; returned to the kitchen; scooped up my phone; and then headed for the living room couch. Being that I was going to be spending the next two or three hours on the phone, I was at least going to be relatively comfortable doing it.

My first order of business, of course, was taking care of my own team. As I made my way through the list, it was decided that everyone would come in on Friday, the memorial service would be Saturday, and then everyone would leave some time Sunday.

Near the end of my list were Jason and Rocky, who I intentionally put last so we could talk about finding Billy and Aisha. Jason, unfortunately, had no idea how to contact Billy on Aquitar and, as he informed me, neither did Trini. Rocky had only an address for Aisha and, while he had already sent her a letter, he was not sure if the address was current; plus, it was highly unlikely for a letter to make it from California to the plains of Africa in the time we had allotted, if at all.

Sadly, it was determined that we would have to carry on without them. With everyone coming in from different parts of the country — or world, in the cases of Katherine, who was in London, and Trini, who was still working with the World Peace Summit all across Europe — we had to go with what worked for the majority.

This left a bitter taste in my mouth — particularly when it came to Billy, who had remained with the team even when left powerless, and who had only left in the end because staying on Earth would have killed him — but there was not much I could really do. Flying to Aquitar in my Zeo Zord would have taken at least a week's time, and there was no telling how long it would have taken me to scour the entire continent of Africa for Aisha.

On top of that, even if either of those options were feasible, it would have required me using my powers, which in turn would ultimately lead to questions I still was not prepared to answer. Even though Billy could have probably helped me a lot more than Andros, I did not want everyone knowing what I was doing.

In my head, I had also determined that Zordon had sent me Andros for a reason. If he had wanted Billy to help me, he would have given me a way to contact him or put him in contact with me like he had done with Andros. Zordon had never steered me wrong before, and I was going to continue following the plan he had laid before me until he gave me a reason not to.

That said, I soon found myself staring at the last name on my list, wondering whether or not it would be right for me to call Kimberly, especially when, as I had just learned, she had not taken a single call from any of her old teammates since I had delivered the news to her of Zordon's passing. Still, I wanted her to know what the plan was so she could make her own decision, even if that meant just leaving her a message.

I was in the middle of listening to the third ring when I heard a knock at my front door. Considering it was raining cats and dogs outside — not to mention the fact that I lived in the middle of nowhere — I was unsurprisingly curious as I walked towards the door with the phone still pressed against my ear.

By the time I reached the door, I was listening to Kimberly's voicemail message, but soon realized I wouldn't need to leave a message at all. When I pulled open the door, Kimberly herself was standing on my porch with only an overly-stuffed backpack, soaked to the bones in jeans and a matching denim jacket.

So surprised was I by her presence that I merely stared at her for quite some time. Though I had not seen her in person since shortly after the karate tournament to save Justin's shelter, she was still very much the young woman I remembered, aside from the fact that her hair was now wet and matted down wildly.

Wearing the faintest of smiles, she murmured, "Hey," and that was all it took to take me out of my stupor.

"Hey," I replied, blinking my mind clear. "Uh, you wanna come in?"

Kimberly chuckled. "That'd be nice." Smiling, I stepped aside and beckoned for her to enter. She looked slightly embarrassed as she walked in while stating, "I bet you're wondering what I'm doing here, huh?"

"Yeah," I answered with a chuckle, closing the door before turning around to face her. When I did, her expression had gone from embarrassment to nervousness, nervousness that I easily recognized by the way she was biting her lip ever so slightly. This left me smiling inwardly as I walked towards her and continued, "But that can wait for awhile." Taking off her backpack for her, I added, "Why don't you go take a hot shower and get some dry clothes on, then you can tell me all about it, okay?"

She smiled brightly at that, nodding as she replied, "That sounds great."

I nodded as well and then showed her to the guest bathroom, grabbing a couple of towels along the way. I also pointed out the two spare rooms it separated — all of which she repeated her gratefulness for, and all of which I consistently reminded her was no trouble at all — and, with that, I left her to her own devices.

Back in the living room, I retrieved my phone once more and went to work on calling the rest of the Turbo/Space Rangers. I had just finished speaking with Cassie, the last of the group, when Kimberly suddenly reappeared, looking embarrassed again as she entered the living room. She had no reason to be, though. If anything, it was I who should have been embarrassed.

She looked stunning in nothing but a towel and I soon found myself having a _hard_ time hiding my reaction, if you know what I mean. In the words of a future stand-up comedian, "This guy knows what I'm talking about…this guy _definitely _knows what I'm talking about."

Anyway, I quickly shifted myself into a concealing angle, hoping Kimberly had not noticed as she murmured, "Um, sorry, Tommy, but I was going through my backpack and all of my clothes are soaked. I — I was wondering —"

"No problem," I quickly interjected with a nod. "Just give me a minute and I'll find something you can wear."

She thanked me with another bright smile and then disappeared back down the hallway. I had never been more thankful to have her out of my presence than I was at that very moment.

Once everything was back to normal a short time later, I made my way into my bedroom and dug out a pair of grey sweats and one of my old flannel long-sleeves, this one checkered green and white; she had always loved wearing those shirts when we were together and it was cold outside, so I figured "why not?"

With a knock at the door of the room she had chosen — which, with both bedroom doors shut, was only discernible by the fact that one had lights on and one didn't — I let her know the garments were outside and returned to the living room once more, this time to await her clothed arrival. Even in sweats and a flannel, I still found her to be as gorgeous as she had always been.

"Hey," she said softly as she walked towards where I sat on the couch some five minutes later.

"Hi," I said with a smile, standing up to "officially" greet her. We shared a friendly hug, utterances of how good it was to see each other again, and then I motioned for her to sit on the couch. "Do you want something to drink? Are you hungry?" I asked, unsure just what kind of journey she had undergone to reach Reefside. Truth be told, I didn't even know how she had found me seeing as how my new address wasn't listed in any phone book and I had never given it to any of the other Rangers, but I decided we could deal with that later.

"They served a meal on the flight," she answered, allowing me the relief that she had not undertaken some crazy, hitchhiking quest to get here, "But I could go for something warm to drink; coffee or tea would be nice, or maybe some cocoa if you have it."

I chuckled slightly at that. "You and your cocoa. Glad to see some things never change," I murmured teasingly, shaking my head. "As it just so happens, you're in luck. I went to Angel Grove for Thanksgiving and my mom sent me back with some of that gourmet raspberry cocoa powder you always liked."

"Ooh, really?" she countered, grinning broadly as I nodded my confirmation. "You know me too well," she added, with something that resembled a blush.

"I could say the same to you," I replied, giving her a quick wink and no time for a comeback as I headed for the kitchen. When I returned a few minutes later with two steaming mugs of cocoa in one hand, and a dish of my mom's leftover pumpkin pie with two forks in the other, she was seated on the couch in a cross-legged position, flipping through one of my coffee table books.

And yes, as a nineteen year-old bachelor, I had coffee table books. If you haven't figured it out by now, you'll soon realize that I was not one of your ordinary nineteen year-old bachelors.

"Since when are you so into dinosaurs?" she asked, turning to look at me while showing me the cover of a book that depicted a giant brontosaurus with her head in the leaves of a tall tree. As soon as she saw what I was carrying, though, she quickly set the book back on the table and stood up with her hands outstretched.

"Thanks," I said, handing her the pie dish.

"No, thank you," she replied with a smile as we sat back down. "I can't thank you enough for this, Tommy, really. I mean, just showing up on your door step like that without even telling you I was coming…you must think I'm crazy."

"Yeah, I do think you're crazy. I think you're absolutely nuts, Kim," I said with a laugh, a laugh that was fueled by the way her face suddenly went blank, "But that's one of the things I've always loved about you. You just do whatever you want to do."

A small smile came over her at that. "Good crazy, then?" she asked hesitantly.

Nodding as I took a sip of my cocoa, I swallowed and said, "Definitely good crazy."

"Good," she replied. "Now, back to the dinosaurs; you've got three huge coffee table books all about dinosaurs. If I didn't know any better, I'd think you were housing a five-year old boy here."

"You must not know any better then. I've never told you about my adopted son, have I?" I said as seriously as I possibly could, cracking up on the inside as the color drained from Kimberly's face once more. I left it silent at that, simply staring at her expressionless face until I could take it no longer and began to laugh harder than I had done in quite some time.

"Oh my god, you're such a jerk!" she exclaimed, laughing herself even as she grabbed a throw pillow from behind her and whacked me on the arm with it. "I can't believe you! I thought you were being serious!"

"I know…that's…best…part!" I howled, unable to contain myself even though I was genuinely trying to at that point, "Your face…priceless…ab…solutely…priceless."

And with that, I fell back on the couch, clutching my sides as my laughter slowed and I waited for my breathing to steady. Kimberly just gave a loud "Humph!" and started stabbing at the pie as though she wished it was me.

When I had finally regained my composure, I pushed myself up so that I was leaning against the armrest at the end of the couch and said, "I've always been interested in dinosaurs. I used to love them when I was a kid; begged my mom to take me to the library so I could check out more and more dinosaur books. By the time I was seven I could have told you nearly every type of dinosaur that had ever existed; what they ate; how they behaved; everything. I was obsessed, to say the least."

"Really?" asked Kimberly with a serious expression. I nodded once and she went on, "I never would have guessed that. You never acted like you were even remotely interested in them at all when we were to —" she paused for a moment, but then quickly amended, "— when we were in high school."

"Yeah, I know," I answered, pretending like I had not noticed her little slip up. "I guess I started to grow out of them in middle school, but being a Ranger kind of brought them back for me. I just wasn't as crazy about them as I used to be," I added with a laugh. "I'm not sure what I'm going to do yet as far as a career, but I'm kind of thinking about something to do with paleontology."

I was not paying good money to go to school for no real reason, after all, and I had already decided I was going to have to find some kind of "normal" career in the end, if for no other reason than to maintain outward appearances and detract from what I was doing with the Rangers. Even though every evil villain we had ever fought was gone, I knew it was only a matter of time before another one arrived on Earth, and I wanted to be as prepared as possible when that inevitably happened.

"I can't believe that," Kimberly replied, sounding quite dumbfounded. "Like I said, I never would have guessed it in a million years."

"Yeah, well, you gotta do what you love, right?" I said with a shrug. "Anyway, what about you…and, if you don't mind me being blunt, what are you doing here? More importantly, how did you even find me?"

"Whoa, slow down, one question at a time, Turbo," said Kimberly, laughing as she took a drink of her cocoa. "I'll answer the last one first. In the few times we've talked in the last year, you never bothered to mention you had moved out, so I was still thinking you were living at your parent's house. I called your mom to tell her I was planning a visit to Angel Grove and that I wanted to surprise you, and that's when I found out you were here. She gave me your address and promised not to tell you I was coming, but unfortunately, the cab driver wouldn't come within two miles of this place, and that's how I ended up soaked. Speaking of which, I threw my clothes in your dryer. I hope you don't mind."

"Not at all," I said, shaking my head. "If you can believe it, I was actually in the middle of calling you when you knocked on the door."

"Really?" asked Kimberly, me nodding again as she continued, "What for?"

"We can talk about that later," I countered, shifting my body into a cross-legged position facing Kimberly, our knees nearly touching. "Right now I want you to tell me what's going on. What made you come out here on a whim like this?"

She sighed, and it became clear immediately that she had not wanted to answer this particular question. "Can I tell you the truth?" she asked with obvious trepidation.

I smiled as warmly as I possibly could. "Of course, Kim," I answered, gently taking her hands in mine. "You can tell me anything."

She smiled back, but it was a forced smile at best. "Honestly, Tommy, I felt alone, and I've been feeling alone since James dumped me after the Pan Global Games; and mind you, that was well over five months ago. Only recently did I start to feel like I was finally getting over it. Then you called and told me about Zordon, and I felt like I was reliving the days right after James broke up with me all over again, only a million times worse. I just — I don't know, Tommy…you've always been able to make me feel better before. I guess — I guess part of me was hoping you'd still be able to. There's more to it than that, but that's the gist of it."

"Tell me the rest," I murmured, but only because I wanted some time to think about what she had just said. I had no idea what she expected me to do, especially since we were nowhere near as close as we had once been, but if there was something I could do to alleviate some of her pain, I would do almost anything, even if it was only temporary.

"I wanted to be close to it again," she whispered, and then continued a bit louder, "I've carried this enormous sense of guilt ever since I left the team. Two weeks in Florida and I was wishing I was back in Angel Grove, fighting Rita and Zedd with the rest of you. But I'd given up my place on the team and I knew there was nothing I could do to get it back. Plus, you'd given me so much encouragement to chase my dream…one of my goals when I left for Florida was to make you proud of me, and I was determined to accomplish that goal."

"I would have been proud of you regardless, Kim. I was always proud of you," I replied, smiling.

"I know you were, Tommy. And _that_ is part of what I've always loved about _you_," she said quietly, looking down. She gave a sniffle, and when she looked back up a moment later I saw that she had tears in her eyes.

Before I could stop myself, I had readjusted my position on the couch once more, this time in a way that allowed me to wrap my arms around her. The side of her head immediately found my chest, and as I rested my chin atop her head, I murmured, "I'm so sorry, Kim."

"It's not your fault," she said, so softly I could barely hear her. "If anything, it's my fault. I shouldn't have ever left. I know it."

"We all had to leave eventually, Kim. Even me, and I thought I'd never leave," I said, gently rubbing her back up and down as I held her close. "One thing I've learned from being a Ranger is that everything happens for a reason, and that, regardless of what happens, it was meant to happen that way."

"That's two things, Tommy," said Kimberly, with a soft laugh that left me rolling my eyes, but smiling nonetheless.

When she said nothing after that, I allowed the silence to come over us for awhile. It was nice, actually, just sitting there holding her like I had spent so many hours doing when we were together back in high school.

For a few moments, I actually wished we _were_ back in high school, back when everything had been so much easier, but then I remembered the words I had just said to Kimberly. Everything happens for a reason, even if, in the present-time, that reason doesn't make a whole hell of a lot of sense.

"Can you turn on the TV?" asked Kimberly, after nearly five minutes of not saying anything.

Chuckling, I replied, "Sure," and then removed one of my arms from around her so I could reach the remote on the coffee table. "What do you want to watch?"

"I don't know," she murmured, moving into a lying position with her legs stretched out across my lap. "Let's see if there are any good movies on."

"Movies it is, then," I replied, firing up the television. "I hope you don't expect me to rub your feet for you, though," I added with a laugh.

Kimberly smirked. "No, but I was kind of enjoying the way you were holding me earlier."

Half-amused and half-surprised, I raised an eyebrow and said, "Is that an invitation to spoon?"

"Friends can spoon, right?" she asked, looking up at me with a smile before flipping onto her side with her back towards the couch.

Shaking my head, I lied down behind her and muttered, "Friends can spoon," as I draped an arm around her, pulled her in close, and used my other hand to navigate the television. As we settled in I began flipping through most of the channels that my satellite dish received, neither one of us able to agree on any particular show or movie — which was pretty much commonplace for Kimberly and me — until at last I landed on Comedy Central, which was showing the movie _Liar, Liar_ with Jim Carrey. While both of us had seen it already, we had also both enjoyed it enough to watch again, and so that was where I left it.

Returning the remote to the coffee table, I then grabbed the blanket I kept draped across the top of the couch and proceeded to toss it over us. Soon after, I felt Kimberly's fingertips dancing along my arm.

"I'm sorry for hurting you, Tommy," she announced in a murmur that came seemingly out of nowhere. "I know I've said it before, I just want you to know how much I mean it."

"There's nothing to apologize for, Kim," I replied, gently brushing some of her auburn locks away from her neck and nuzzling the area for a moment, for no reason other than it seemed like a good thing to do in my head. "Everything happens for a reason, remember? Our relationship —what it was; what it is; and what it becomes in the future — is no exception to that."

"You're too wise to be nineteen," she said, yawning halfway through a laugh.

"And you're too smart to let a jerk who doesn't know how good he had it keep you down," I countered, lightly poking her ribs in a way that let her know I was only teasing.

"Hey, I said I was getting over it, didn't I?" she fired back.

"Yeah, after almost half a year," I retorted. "It took me half a day to get over you."

"Oh really?" she replied, pushing herself out of my embrace and into a sitting position with her arms across her chest.

"Yep," I said simply, nodding my head.

"Then why'd you pop one when I walked out in my towel earlier?"

My mouth dropped open at that. I was so sure she had not noticed that I could do little more than sit there in dumbfounded silence for almost a full minute, staring at Kimberly as her expression grew triumphant. Luckily, she was willing to save me, as well as make fun of me.

"Everything happens for a reason, remember?" she said with a wink. "Besides, if you walked out in nothing but a towel and _I_ had a penis, I'm sure it'd get hard too. Hey, maybe Billy and I can find a way to switch bodies again so I can test the theory."

"Oh god, I don't even want to _think_ about you in Billy's body," I said, shuddering exaggeratedly.

That left us both laughing again, and soon we were lying back down as if the whole exchange hadn't even taken place at all. This, like a lot of things that had happened between us tonight, was just like I remembered it being with us.

I don't remember when exactly I fell asleep that night, only that the last time I looked at the clock on my VCR it read just after eleven o'clock and Kimberly was still wrapped in my arms. But when I woke up the next morning around six-thirty, she was nowhere to be seen.

Curious — and, yes, I'll admit, slightly worried — I threw the blanket away from me and rose to my feet with a yawn, pushing my ridiculously long hair back and rubbing my eyes as I started towards the kitchen. At that point, I wasn't even aware of the fact that I had fallen asleep in the jeans and long-sleeved polo shirt I'd had on since yesterday morning.

Kimberly, however, was not in the kitchen, nor was she in any of the bedrooms, bathrooms, or the den. Slightly worried quickly became really worried, and suddenly I was wide awake. Frantically, I rushed to the backyard, but she was not there either, and I soon found that the front yard was equally empty as well.

I was seriously starting to panic.

Rushing up my driveway to the dirt road through the forest, I looked right and then left, breathing a sigh of relief when I saw a figure approaching in the distance, about half a mile away. In the six months I had lived in this house no one besides Kimberly and my parents had ever even been there, so I was pretty sure it was her, but that didn't stop me from waiting with baited breath, staring intently at the figure until it grew close enough to be discernible.

Though I still could not make out the person's face, I could now see that it was indeed a woman approaching, one with brown hair, who was jogging in a pink tank top and black spandex shorts; definitely Kimberly.

Staring up at the sky, I muttered my thanks and then quickly returned to the house. There was no way in hell I was going to let her know just how worried her little disappearing act had actually made me.

Inside, I headed for the kitchen and went to work on cooking breakfast. When I was living with my parents, my mom had always cooked a hot breakfast on the weekends; after a few weeks of living alone, I started missing it enough to learn how to do it myself.

I had never cooked anything that didn't come in a box before I moved out, and there were many times over the first few months where I had to resort to takeout because another of my experiments had turned into a disaster. I won't even tell you about the half-dozen or so times I nearly burned the house down.

Anyway, I ended up a pretty decent cook after some practice, decent enough to whip up a solid breakfast at least. I had just gathered up all my ingredients from the refrigerator, and was about to throw some bacon on a stove-top skillet when I heard the front door open and close quietly.

I could barely hear her footsteps on the hardwood floors, which meant she had to have taken her running shoes off, which in turn meant she probably thought I was still asleep. Abandoning breakfast momentarily, I hid against the nearest wall and listened as her steps grew closer on the other side. When she was close enough to me, I began sliding along the wall, staying just ahead of her steps until at last the wall ended in the wide opening to the living room.

It was then that I hopped out with my arms stretched high, shouting a bunch of nonsensical gobbledygook that would have made Kimberly jump right out of her shoes if she had been wearing any.

"Asshole!" she yelled, smacking me on the chest once she had regained her composure. I was too busy laughing my ass off to care though.

"That's what you get for taking off without even leaving a note," I said through my laughter.

Staring at me in what I assumed to be disbelief, Kimberly shook her head and then marched over to the nearby coffee table. It was only then that I noticed the pad of paper that rested atop the dinosaur book she had been looking at last night. As she started back towards me with pad in hand, I felt like an idiot even before I'd seen what was on it.

"I did leave you a note, you imbecile," she muttered, smacking me on the chest again, this time with the cardboard side of the pad. "Besides," she added, looking back at me and winking as she made her way into the kitchen, "did you really want another letter from me?"

This, of course, was my payback for scaring her, which she, of course, knew would sting far more than the two physical hits she had just laid on me. Again, though, she saved me when I was left speechless.

"So what are you making me for breakfast?" she called out over her shoulder.

"Anything you want so long as it consists of the stuff on the counter," I answered, pointing to the ingredients I had laid out: a carton of eggs; a bag of shredded cheese; a bag of shredded potatoes; Texas toast; bacon; sausage links; and a small ham steak.

Like I said, I liked breakfast a lot.

"Can you make an omelet with everything you have here?" she asked with a smile.

"Yeah," I answered, letting out a small chuckle as I started towards her and added, "but not a very pretty one; how about a scramble instead?"

"I could settle for that," she said, flashing me yet another grin. "Do you need any help?"

"No, I think I pretty much have it under control. Thanks, though" I said, giving her a smile of my own.

"Well then do you mind if I take a quick shower?"

Setting down the package of sausage I had just started to open, I turned around to face Kimberly, placed my hands on her shoulders, and said, "Kim, you're a guest in my home. If you randomly want something to drink or eat, you can get it yourself; if the TV's off and you want to watch it, turn it on; and if you want to take a shower, take a freaking shower. You don't have to ask to do anything, okay?"

Biting down on her lip, she nodded once and murmured, "Got it."

"Good," I replied, releasing my hold on her.

"I'll be back in a few minutes then," said Kimberly, side-stepping around me. It was only when she reached the hallway that she stopped, though I did not immediately notice this since I was facing the stove. "Thank you, Tommy…for everything," she said softly, garnering my attention and causing me to turn around. "I really appreciate this."

I merely smiled, said "Any time, Kim," and returned to my cooking. A few minutes later, I could hear the muffled sound of the shower coming from the back of the house.

Alone and with a relatively clear head for the first time since she had shown up on my doorstep some ten hours ago, I finally had the opportunity to really think about everything that had happened in that short period of time.

Since our breakup, Kimberly and I had not been particularly close at all. We had talked about everything after the karate tournament and agreed that we could still be friends, but five-thousand miles and extremely busy personal lives on both sides made it very difficult to maintain a true friendship. We spoke on the phone and emailed each other occasionally, but that was about the extent of things. Now that she was here, though, it seemed like things between us were exactly as they had been before she had left Angel Grove for Florida.

Part of me genuinely enjoyed this level of comfort that we shared with each other, but another part of me was equally worried by it. Most of it had seemed innocent enough last night, but in retrospect, it really wasn't, at least not in my experiences. I had been fairly close with all of the Rangers, including the females on the team, but I had never slept cuddling with any of them while still in the "friend territory."

And while I had never been much of a flirter — in fact, up to that point, I couldn't even recall a single time in my life where I had knowingly flirted — I was pretty sure that Kimberly and I had been doing quite a bit of it. At least, that's what it seemed like to me, anyway, and that was what worried me.

Kimberly seemed pretty vulnerable, and once again, I didn't know what the hell I was doing. My guy friends have always needled me for being oblivious to the advances of the opposite sex — of which I apparently receive my fair share — and I could not help but wonder what they would say if they could see Kimberly and me now.

Was she still "interested" in me and I didn't realize it? And what was even more worrisome, was I still "interested" in her? I have to be honest, I had not thought a lot about her in the last year or so, but now, at the forefront of my thoughts, I could recall but one memory.

Adam, Justin, Katherine, Tanya, and I had just become Turbo Rangers; at the same time, Divatox had abducted Jason and Kimberly with plans to sacrifice them in Maligore's pit on the island of Muranthias. Unfortunately, we were not able to save our friends in time, and they emerged from the pit possessed by the evil of the demon-creature Maligore. To make matters even worse, it seemed that Jason cared nothing about the other Rangers, wanting only to hurt me as badly as he possibly could. And it wasn't like the others could help me, since Kimberly and Divatox's minions were keeping them well occupied.

In the end, he had me pinned down over Maligore's pit, on the verge of sacrificing me as well, when I was finally able to break free, flipping him over the ledge in the process. Somehow, though, I was able to grab his arm, but Jason had removed my helmet in the fight and, while the rest of my suit remained in place, my Ranger-enhanced strength would not come unless I was in full morph.

Soon I was losing my grip, and it wasn't helping matters that Jason was still trying to fight me, this time in an effort to get me to drop him into the pit a second time. Luckily, while this was going on, a Liarian wizard called Lerigot — imagine an Ewok from _Star Wars,_ but with bigger eyes, more fur, and a friendlier appearance — who had been imprisoned along with out friends, was able to release Kimberly from Maligore's control. It was then, at the last possible moment, that she appeared by my side. Looking me right in the eyes, she simply said, "I'm with you," and then immediately reached out for Jason's other arm, our combined effort saving him and, in turn, breaking the spell on him as well.

Now, at this point, you may be thinking that I was reading far too much into what appears to be just a brief exchange, but the way she looked at me, the way she spoke to me…somehow, I just knew that she had meant more.

Fortunately for me, a few minutes to Kimberly meant nearly half an hour, and by the time she reemerged, breakfast was ready and my head was mostly clear. In fact, it was clearer than it had been in a long time.

I was not over Kimberly.

It's easy to forget what something — or someone, in this case — means to you when you haven't had it in such a long time, but it's just as easy to remember what it means when it suddenly comes hurtling back into your life as she had done.

Of course, none of this meant anything if she did not feel the same way towards me, but obviously, I was hoping that she did. The only thing I was certain about, though, was that I was not going to push the issue.

When it came to Kimberly, if she wanted something enough, nothing would stop her from going after it. If she wanted more than friendship, she would pursue it. If not, I was okay with just being friends. It certainly wasn't my ideal result, but our conversation after Muranthias had made me realize that I cared about her far too much to exclude her from my life completely, so if friendship was all she offered, I would take it.

"Mmm, it smells delicious," said Kimberly, simultaneously announcing her presence and shaking me from my deep seeded thoughts. "Something smells cinnamon-y."

"That would be the French toast," I said, looking back at her with a smile.

"Ooh, you made French toast, too? I must be the luckiest girl on the planet," she replied.

"Yeah, I'd say so," I laughed, earning a smiling eye-roll for my efforts. "Hey, I could use a hand if you're still willing."

"Sure," she said, nodding. "What do you need?"

"Just two plates, two glasses, and some silverware," I answered. "They're in the cabinet and drawer closest to the dishwasher."

"Got it," said Kimberly. Then, a few moments later, I heard, "Uh, Tommy?"

"Yeah?" I replied, looking back over my shoulder to find Kimberly pointing at the plates on the topmost shelf with an expression that very plainly said I was an idiot for asking her to reach them.

"You know that's not happening, right?" she questioned.

Chuckling, I walked over to where she was standing, but I did not reach for the plates myself. Instead, I surprised Kimberly by quickly grabbing her at the waist and lifting her as high as I could. Somewhere in between horrified and amused, she looked down at me and shook her head, but retrieved the plates nonetheless, at which point I returned her to her feet.

"Effective, but not what I was going for," said Kimberly, smiling despite herself.

"Eh, I'm over it," I countered with a grin, shrugging nonchalantly as I began to transfer the food into serving dishes.

Shortly thereafter, we were breakfasting, chatting casually and just generally playing catch-up. I learned that, after her three gold medals at the Pan Global Games, she had decided to quit competitive gymnastics for good and was now attending the University of Miami with a focus on business, which was going to come in very handy considering her goal was to eventually open her own gymnastics studio. And on top of going to school full time, she was also teaching young children at a local Miami studio as well.

"And you were just able to up and leave to come out here like that?" I asked in surprise, mostly because I had always known her to be more responsible than most people our age were.

"Well, I kind of fibbed a little bit," she admitted with a sheepish grin. "I told my professors and my boss that my grandpa had passed away and that I needed to fly out to California immediately. Luckily, they were all pretty understanding, and I have enough vacation time stored up at work that it won't hurt me financially."

I just nodded. "How long are you planning on staying?"

"I don't know. When's everyone coming?"

"Most everyone should be here sometime Friday, or early Saturday," I answered. "Adam, Tanya, Justin, and Rocky all live close enough to just drive up for the day; Jason and Zack are both flying out late Friday morning and staying with their parents for the weekend; same with Trini, but she's catching a Friday morning red-eye; and Katherine's leaving Thursday evening, also staying with her parents."

"What about Billy and Aisha?" Kimberly questioned, looking at me in confusion.

Sighing, I set my fork down and said, "Billy's still on Aquitar and no one knows how to contact him. As far as Aisha goes, Rocky said he sent her a letter to let her know everything, but there's no way it'll reach Africa in time, and on top of that, he wasn't even sure if it was a current address. I wish I had a way to get in touch with them sooner, or at all in Billy's case, but I don't know what to do."

Unfortunately, Kimberly had the same address for Aisha as Rocky, and no better ideas on how to get in touch with either of them. And while she was as upset as I was that neither was likely to make it, she also understood how difficult it would be to get everyone together at a time that was convenient to all twelve of us, not including the Space Rangers, of course.

"Would you be okay if I stayed through next weekend, then?"

Taking a bite of my meat-and-cheese loaded eggs, I nodded, swallowed, and said, "I have class all day most of next week, so you might be pretty bored out here all by yourself, but you're more than welcome to stay here any time you want or need to."

That one earned me a big smile. "You know," she started, shaking her head, "I was actually kind of worried when I left Miami."

"Why?" I asked with a furrowed brow. "What, did you think I was going to leave you out in the rain or something?"

Kimberly shrugged. "I don't know. I wasn't expecting such a warm welcome, though. Not after the way I hung up on you the other night, and especially not after the way I hurt you."

This caused me to sigh once more. "Are we really going to do this again, Kim?" I questioned, with a hint of exasperation. "Look, we were in high school when we dated, and let's be honest, most high school couples don't last forever. Plus, it was over two years ago. Yeah, it definitely hurt, I'm not going to lie about that, but it was a long time ago. I've gotten over it."

"Are you saying you've gotten over me?"

In no way, shape, or form was that even remotely close to the response that I had been expecting and, in what seemed to be a never-ending cycle, I was speechless once more. God, why did she always have to do this to me, especially with something as serious as that?

For what felt like hours, I could not find words, but when I finally did, I made sure that they counted. "Well, you didn't leave me much choice, did you?" I replied, getting up from the table with my plate in hand, heading through the swinging door into the kitchen before she could say anything else.

Stupid me for thinking that would have stopped her from trying to continue this conversation I clearly didn't want to have. Not thirty seconds later, as I stood at the sink doing dishes, I heard the door swing open, followed by Kimberly's approaching footsteps.

"What was that about?" she asked as she walked towards me, setting her plate in the sink and then leaning against the counter with her arms folded across her chest less than a foot away from where I stood.

"Nothing," I muttered, increasing the vigor with which I scrubbed the plate I had in hand, not even realizing that I had been scrubbing the same plate the entire time. "Just let it go."

"No, Tommy, I'm not going to just let it go," said Kimberly, glaring at me with a fire in her eyes that I had not seen in many years. "We've known each other too long and have way too much history for you to just storm out on me."

"Oh, but not enough history for you to hang up on me?" I countered, glaring right back while silently wishing for the first time in six years that I could make my eyes flash green again.

"I —" she started, but, finally, it was she who had been left speechless. Inside, I was triumphant; outside, I pretended like we hadn't even been talking at all, finally setting aside the plate and moving onto a new one. Eventually, though, she found her voice again, although it could barely be considered a whisper. "I never meant to hurt you, Tommy."

That caused me to flip my sponge up in disgust. Setting the plate down in the sink, I turned off the water, wheeled around to face Kimberly, and said, "You still don't get it, do you? This isn't about what happened or how I felt back in high school, Kim, this is about what's happening and how I feel right now."

"Well then tell me how you feel, Tommy," she replied, almost pleadingly.

"Why, Kim? Why would I do that? I let you into my heart once and look where it got me," I shot back, refusing to give up an inch.

"I —" she stammered, moving her hands to her hips defensively. "I thought you said you were over that."

"Over the breakup, yeah," I said. "That means I'm not bitter or sad or angry about it anymore. It doesn't mean that I can just pretend like what you did to me didn't happen. It's not easy to just trust someone unconditionally after something like that, Kim."

"I'm not asking you to trust me unconditionally, Tommy, I just want to know how you feel," she began. Letting out a sigh, she reached out and touched my arm, and though I wanted to pull away, I could not bring myself to do so. Instead, I simply stood there with my eyes closed and listened in silence as she continued, "Because Tommy, the truth is, last night, when you were holding me, I felt something I hadn't felt in a long time. That was part of why I left so early this morning. I just — I needed to clear my head a bit and figure some things out, you know?"

"What'd you come up with?" I asked softly, my eyes still shut.

"That leaving you was, without a doubt, the most idiotic thing that I have done in my entire life," she answered firmly. This left my eyes open once more, but before I could reply, she was continuing, "Since you don't feel like you can be completely honest with me, I'm going to be completely honest with you. I never wanted James over you; you meant everything to me and he meant nothing. Like I said last night, your encouragement was one of the few things that kept me going in Florida. I've never told you this, but the only reason I ever stayed with James in the first place was because of my own stupidity."

"What are you —?" I started, but she was waving me off before I could finish.

"Please, just let me get this out. I haven't told another living soul what I'm about to tell you, and it's not something that's easy for me to talk about."

"Okay," I murmured, nodding my head as I leaned against the counter. "I'm listening."

"Thank you," she replied, flashing the faintest of smiles. "Anyway, like I told you after the karate tournament, James was on the swimming team. On the outside, he was everything you were — attractive, smart, funny, a gentleman, manly enough that I felt safe around him, but still sensitive enough that I could talk to him about personal things — but there was always something about you that he never had. I couldn't explain it back then, and I still can't now, but every time you walked into a room I got butterflies, even after almost two years of dating.

"After a couple months of being friends, James started to hint that he was interested in more than just friendship. At the end of the day, though, he wasn't you and I made it perfectly clear to him that I had no intentions of leaving you. After that, everything pretty much went back to normal. Everything was good between you and me, and even though we weren't talking as much as either one of us would have liked, I knew in my heart that eventually we would have some sense of normalcy again. I didn't know how long it would take, but I knew without a doubt that it was worth waiting for. I want you to know that I never doubted that for a second, Tommy. You meant the world to me."

I just nodded my head, keeping my vow of silence as she went on, "But, like I said, I was stupid. It was early November, the Games were just a little over a year away, and every athlete in every sport had been busting their asses off to make sure they made their respective teams. For most of the sports and events, the final teams were announced well in advance so that each team was set with plenty of time to prepare as a unit before the Games.

"So since most of the teams were announced at the same time, it was only natural that we all celebrated together. I had never had any more alcohol than a glass of wine with dinner, and it was only on special occasions, and always with some kind of adult family member around, but that night a couple of the girls on my team convinced me to drink with them at this party we were at. I'd spent my whole life doing my own thing regardless of what other people thought about me, but almost every friend I had ever known was either on the other side of the country or in a different country altogether. I'll admit, I was somewhat lonely, and I really, _really_ wanted these girls to like me, so I gave into the peer pressure and got drunk. Having never been drunk before, and not really understanding my limits, I got pretty hammered, pretty fast."

The look on her face confirmed what she had told me earlier; that this was truly a difficult subject for her to speak about. For my part, I was somewhere between confused, curious, and worried, with several different ideas as to where this story could be going, but still, I merely kept silent and listened.

"I honestly don't even remember exactly how it happened — and that's almost the most shameful part of the story — just that James and I ran into each other, we started talking, and then the next thing I remember, I was making out with him in the back of his friend's car on the way back to the dorms. I-I slept with him, Tommy. I gave up my virginity while drunk, to a guy that didn't even mean half as much to me as you did."

At this point, she had tears in her eyes, but when instinct kicked in and I reached out in an attempt to comfort her, she merely pushed my hand away and said, "Don't. I don't deserve it, Tommy. I just — when I woke up the next morning in his room, I felt like the world's biggest slut and the world's biggest idiot slammed into one giant fuck-up; and, as if I didn't feel bad enough, James wasn't even there.

"Over the next couple of days, I cut off communication with everyone. I didn't talk to a single person unless it was school or gymnastics related: not you, not my mom, not 'Sha, not Trini, nobody; and definitely not James. He called a few times, too, but he was the last person I wanted to talk to. All I could think about was how bad I had screwed up and whether or not you would ever even consider forgiving me for it. I was literally on the verge of getting on a plane to Angel Grove, telling you everything, and doing anything and everything I could to make it up to you."

Emotionally, I was now very much conflicted. Part of me was angry that she had gone so far with someone else while we were together — especially when we had only just begun to seriously talk about sex prior to her leaving for Florida — but another part of me also understood that she, like every other human being in the history of time, had made a mistake, and on a human level, I truly appreciated that she was willing to admit to it.

"So what ended up changing your mind for you?" I asked, finally feeling like this was an okay point to interject.

"My period was late and, truthfully, I couldn't remember whether or not James had worn a condom," she answered honestly, though it clearly pained her to do so. I could not recall a single time in our long history where I had ever seen her look more embarrassed than she did right now. Still, she continued, "I stayed fairly calm in the beginning, convincing myself that I was okay and that it would happen any time now, but the longer it took to come, the more I started to worry. By the tenth day, I was convinced I was pregnant, and if that was the case, I knew there would be no hope for us. Luckily, I got my period a couple days later, but by that point, the damage in my head had already been done.

"Whether or not I was right, I convinced myself that I had done the unforgivable. I just knew there was no way you would ever take me back after what I had done to you. That's about the time I wrote the letter to you. I lied about so many things in that letter, simply because I knew you wouldn't push the issue further if you thought I was truly happy with someone else. I took advantage of everything you had given me, both as a friend and a boyfriend, and I can never apologize enough for that, Tommy."

"I appreciate your honesty, Kim," I replied, "But what I don't understand is why you stayed with him for so long if, like you're telling me, you didn't even care about him that much."

Letting out a sigh, Kimberly looked up at me with eyes brimming with tears, a single wet droplet escaping each eye as she said, "In the end, it was how I justified everything in my head. I had always planned on giving myself to you first, but since that obviously couldn't happen, I decided I didn't want my virginity lost to a one night stand. The next time James called after I had sent you the letter, I answered and, well, the rest kind of speaks for itself."

"Yeah, I guess it kind of does," I murmured, still not entirely sure of what I felt at that moment.

"Do you hate me now that you know everything?" she asked hesitantly.

"Kim," I started, releasing a sigh of my own, "For two months after you broke up with me, I tried as hard as I could to hate you. I wanted to hate you more than anything on the entire planet. But I couldn't. No matter what I did, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't bring myself to hate you; which isn't really surprising considering that, up to that point, I'd never even been able to stay mad at you for more than an hour."

Apparently, that was enough to make her lose it, because she started full on crying at that point. As soon as the tears really started to fall, I wasted no time in embracing her, holding her close as she cried against my chest.

"I'm such a terrible person," she sobbed, grasping my shirt as if her life depended on it. "E-even now, after — after everything I did to you…I don't understand it, Tommy. Any other guy would hate me for what I did."

"I really don't know what to tell you, Kim, other than I don't hate you, and I never have," I whispered, gently rubbing her back up and down. Her crying continued, though, and it was that which led me to what came out of my mouth next. "Shh, please don't cry, Beautiful. You know I've never been able to deal with that."

And suddenly, as if on command, she stopped crying. "Beautiful," she murmured, sniffling loudly. "Beautiful…no one's called me that in so long."

"Well you are, regardless of what anyone else has or hasn't said," I replied, letting go of my hold on her so that I could take her face in my hands. "To this day, you're still the most gorgeous woman I've ever seen, and I'm not just saying that to try and make you feel better, either. I mean it, Kim."

"I —" she started, falling silent for a few moments before softly continuing, "Thank you, Tommy. Even though I know I shouldn't need it, you always seem to know exactly what to say to make me feel better. It means so much to me. _You _mean so much to me. I just want you to know that I will never, _ever_ take advantage of you again."

"I realized that a long time ago, Kim," I said quietly. I don't know what it was, exactly, perhaps the way she had been so honest with me, but I suddenly had the urge to open up as well. Taking one of her hands, I gently pulled her back towards the door as I explained, "Follow me, I want to show you something."

"Where are you taking me?" she asked as I led her through the dining room and into the main hallway.

"You'll see," I answered, remaining silent from there until we reached our destination, the door to the linen closet. And when I opened the door, Kimberly's confused expression was exactly what I had been expecting.

"You wanted to show me towels and sheets?" she questioned, staring at me like I had gone absolutely insane in the last two minutes.

Laughing, I shook my head and said, "No, not quite." And with that, my expression grew serious as I continued, "There's something else that I want to show you, but before I do, you have to promise me that you will never mention anything you see to another living soul without talking to me about it first."

Kimberly laughed a bit awkwardly at that, but the look on my face remained unflinching. "You're serious?" she finally asked.

"As a heart-attack, Kim," I answered. "If I show you this, it can never be talked about to anyone, not even another Ranger; that includes 'Sha and Trini, too."

"Wow," she breathed, falling into a brief lapse of silence before asking, "It's not bad, is it?"

I shook my head. "Not at all; and eventually, the others will know, too, I'm just not prepared to talk about it with them right now."

Swallowing hard, Kimberly nodded and said, "Okay, you have my word, Tommy. I won't say anything to anyone."

"Okay," I said, taking hold of the large, empty television box on the closet floor, which I then dragged into the hallway and away from the door. From there, I moved back to the closet, took a knee, and moved my hands along the carpet until I found the crease I was looking for. Once found, I pulled up and lifted a section of the floor back, revealing an old wooden staircase.

With that, I simply stood up, gestured towards the stairs with my hand, and said, "After you."


	4. A Day of Mixed Results

_**Title: The Hexagon**_

_**Chapter 3 — A Day of Mixed Results**_

_**Original Posting Date: February 16, 2010**_

--

"What is this, Tommy?" asked Kimberly hesitantly, staring at me blankly. "You're not going to show me some creepy sex dungeon or something like that, are you? Because that would definitely qualify under the category of 'bad.'"

Chuckling, I shook my head and said, "No, Kim, it's nothing like that, I promise. Actually, it's not much at all right now, to be honest, but I thought you might like to see it."

"What is it?" she questioned, still refusing to move an inch.

Letting out a sigh, I closed the distance between us and took her hands in mine. "Kim," I began softly, looking her right in the eyes, "if you want me to start trusting you again, then you are going to have to start trusting me as well."

Swallowing hard, she nodded and, in barely a whisper, said, "I trust you, Tommy. I've always trusted you."

I could not help but to smile at that. "Good," I replied, giving her a quick hug that could not have been construed as anything more than friendly. "Come on, I'll lead the way since you're such a chicken-shit."

"Not a chicken-shit, Tommy, I just really don't want to see the place where you tie up your slaves and do dirty things to them," she countered, allowing me to maintain my hold on one of her hands nonetheless as I led her to the staircase.

Rolling my eyes, I looked back at her and said, "You really need to get your mind out of the gutter, you know that?"

"Hey, better the gutter than the middle of the street, right? The odds of it getting run over in the gutter are significantly less, you know," she responded with an expression so serious it nearly caused me to slip on the staircase from sheer disbelief. Then I remembered it was Kimberly, and if I wanted to have her back in my life in any capacity, I was going to have to re-acclimate myself to the quirkiness that was such a prominent part of her personality.

Instead of replying, I simply shook my head and laughed before continuing down the stairs into the darkened basement. I did, however, remind her to keep one hand on the nearby banister just to be on the safe side since the darkness made it rather easy to miss a step. Fortunately, we made it to the bottom without problem, and I soon found the switch to illuminate the room.

Kimberly's confused expression as she looked around the room was mostly what I had been expecting, mostly because there was not a whole lot to the basement yet. The walls were lined with steel as I already mentioned, but aside from that it looked much like a regular office. There was a desk with a computer, assorted filing cabinets nearby, and a state of the art safe in which, unbeknownst to Kimberly, the four remaining Zeonizers were contained.

When she finally seemed to have taken everything in she then turned around to face me, looking even more confused as she asked, "So, uh, what is it?"

"I call it 'The Lair,'" I answered, smiling proudly. "I know it's not much right now, but I'm hoping we'll really be able to expand on it in the next few months."

"We'll?" she questioned, brow furrowed.

"Yeah," I said, nodding, "Andros and I."

"Tommy, what is going on?" demanded Kimberly, hands on her hips. "What are you doing?"

"What Zordon asked me to," I said, Kimberly's expression twisting even further. Instead of waiting for her to request an explanation, though, I simply continued on, telling her all about my trip to the Power Chamber and what I had found there.

"I don't get it," she replied, arms folded across her chest. "Any of us who went out there could have come across that stuff. What makes you think it was meant for you specifically?"

And that was when I told her the full story behind Andros' visit, including the part about Zordon sending him to help me. That seemed to do the trick as far as convincing her, and soon her confused expression became one somewhere in between shock and awe.

"Wow," she breathed, shaking her head. "Zordon must really, _really_ trust you with this."

"I know," I replied, nodding my head. "That's why I'm hoping I can really start to make some headway on this stuff once Andros comes back. Zordon told Andros that shattering his energy tube would rid the universe of all existing evil beings, but it's only a matter of time before potential power or fortune sways someone new, and I need to be as ready as I possibly can be when that happens."

"But how are you going to fight anything without powers?" she questioned.

Flashing Kimberly a smile, I walked over to the safe, input a seven-digit code, and then submitted my index finger to a print-scanner; moments later, the door popped open with a hiss. "With these," I answered, grinning broadly as Kimberly approached. Pulling open the door as wide as it would go, I stepped back and watched from a few feet away as she walked inside.

The inside of the safe was ten feet by ten feet, and at the center of it was a long plastic party table atop which rested the oaken box containing the four remaining Zeonizers. As she approached the box, Kimberly looked back at me and said, "Can I open it?"

I simply nodded, very keen to see her reaction to what was inside. It was going to play a very integral role in what I did next. While she dealt with opening the box, I crept into a better position on the other side of the door, allowing me to see the conflicted expression that came over her. From what I could tell, it seemed to be a mixture of uncertainty and surprise, plus relief that it was indeed not something bad or dangerous.

"Are these what I think they are?" she asked over her shoulder.

Our eyes met as I countered, "What do you think they are?"

"They look like Morphers, but I'm not sure," she answered, shrugging. "I've never seen anything like these before."

"They are Morphers," I replied, moving inside the safe. Once I was side by side with her, I continued, "They're technically called Zeonizers. We used them when we made the switch to the Zeo powers. This one," I continued, touching the pair of Morphers on the left, "Would have been yours if you had stayed."

Her eyes settled on the Zeonizers my fingers rested atop and a sad frown soon followed, Kimberly completely throwing me off guard when tears formed in her eyes. "Why are you showing me this, Tommy?" she demanded, her head whipping around to face me.

"Kim," I began, instinctively reaching for her hand, but she quickly pulled it away. Sighing, I ran my hand through my hair and asked, "What would you say if I offered it to you?"

"Dammit, Tommy!" she yelled. "Why are you doing this to me?"

"Doing what? What am I doing?" I questioned firmly.

"_THIS_!" she replied, throwing her hands up in the air as if that was how normal people communicated with one another. "Why would you screw with me like this after I poured my heart out to you over how guilty I was about leaving?"

"What?" I sputtered, shaking my head. "Who said I was screwing with you? I'm being dead serious, Kim. Kat's in England right now and no invading enemy has ever attacked internationally before. If I'm going to give this to someone, I'm going to give it to the closest person possible. Plus," I paused for a long moment here, letting out a slow breath. Honestly, I did not want to admit what I was about to say, but nonetheless, I said, "The truth is that the battlefield never felt the same without you by my side. You and I, we had a real connection and understanding out there; Kat was a great Ranger, don't get me wrong, but I didn't have that same connection and understanding with her."

"So," I continued, picking up the Morphers and extending them towards her, "they're yours if you want them."

"Y-you're serious?" she managed, her hands covering her mouth.

Smiling, I gently took her hands and proceeded to strap the Zeonizers around her wrist, Kimberly simply looking down at me with no argument at all. I then locked the Zeonizers together in the typical "t" position and murmured, "Zeo Ranger One, Pink," and then stepped back as her whole body became enveloped in pink light.

Fortunate, wasn't it, that the only remaining power source we had left to us was the one that could be used by anyone so long as they held the proper Morpher? There was no biological bonding, totem animals, or voice recognition with the Zeonizers; simply the will of the person holding them. Though, in the back of my mind, I could not help but to think of how bad that would be if just one of the Zeonizers were to fall into enemy hands.

Anyway, when the light was finally gone, Kimberly was too, replaced by a fully morphed Pink Zeo Ranger, the suit of which had shrunken considerably from what I remembered to fit her much shorter frame. As was so often the case after one touched a new power for the first time, Kimberly was left in awe, staring through her oval-shaped helmet visor, to her gloved hands, booted feet, and pink uniform.

Eventually, when she seemed to have taken it all in, she looked up at me and said, "Is this really happening right now?"

Chuckling, I nodded and answered, "Yeah, it is. What do you think?"

Instead of answering straight away, though, she brought her hands up towards the sides of her neck and unclasped her helmet. As she removed the helmet from her head, her long auburn locks slowly fell out, swaying gracefully into place down her back. I was utterly transfixed by her despite my brain begging me not to be.

"I feel incredible," she finally replied, smiling brightly as she tucked her helmet against her hip with one hand.

"You look incredible," I blurted before I could stop myself.

Kimberly's cheeks quickly became the same shade of her uniform as she awkwardly murmured, "T-thanks."

"So, um," I continued rather hastily, trying to save her the same way she had saved me before, "are you in?"

This caused her to sigh. "I-I don't know, Tommy. I mean, this is a lot to take in at once. And think about it; if something happened here, how would I get here fast enough to help you from Florida? Or vice-versa? We can't teleport anywhere we want to anymore, Tommy."

"I know," I replied, nodding. "I'm working on that. I can't promise anything, but I have some schematics for a network of teleportation portals. I'm hoping that Andros will be able to make some sense out of all of it, if not more."

"Wait, teleportation portals?" she questioned. "That doesn't sound like what we used."

"It's not," I said, shrugging, "But it's what Zordon left me. We wouldn't be able to teleport anywhere we wanted at any given moment but, in theory — and this is strictly coming from my limited understanding of diagrams I've seen and minimal written instructions — we would be able to teleport to any location where another portal existed. So, if we're able to make one of these portals here, we would just have to make one of them everywhere a semi-active Ranger is as well."

"You know, you're starting to sound a lot like Billy," she teased, setting her helmet down on the desk.

I rolled my eyes at that. "Oh, come on, Kim; you and I both know I will never be anywhere near as smart as that man. I'm just — I'm really into this, you know? All I've ever wanted to do in life is help others, and doing this…doing what Zordon wants — no, _needs _— me to do…that's the best way I know how to help people."

Kimberly smiled slightly and nodded her head once. "You're a Ranger through and through, Tommy. You always have been. Wherever Zordon is right now, I'm sure he's so proud of you."

This left me smiling as well; closing what little space remained between us, I loosely enclosed her gloved hands within my own and raised them high enough so we could both see them. Then I looked her right in the eyes and, very simply, whispered, "Help me, Kim."

She did not answer, though. Instead, her surprise quickly became mine as she: pulled her hands from my grasp; grabbed me by the shirt; yanked me down to her level; and kissed me with more passion than I had ever felt from her before, and that's saying a lot. Kimberly had been a great kisser when we were together, and it seemed as though she had only gotten better with time.

I soon found myself lost in the kiss, and before I realized what I was doing, instinct had kicked in once more. I began returning her kiss with what I hoped was just as much passion, my hands making their way to her waist while hers looped around my neck. Only when the need to breathe became too much to continue did we break apart, my eyes immediately looking to Kimberly's slightly-flushed, lip-biting expression.

"So, uh, was that a yes?" I asked, trying to pass it off with an awkward chuckle.

"I don't know," she answered with a mischievous grin. "What do you think?"

"I think you're back where you belong," I replied, allowing her to interpret that however she chose to.

"In more ways than one?" she questioned slyly.

Smiling, I opened my arms and, as she found my embrace, her head resting against my chest, I said, "In as many ways as you want, Beautiful."

Nuzzling my chest, she murmured, "Power down," and a quick burst of pink light immediately followed, leaving her in the jeans and pink tank top she had been wearing earlier. Then, as her fingertips danced lightly across my chest, she whispered, "Tommy?"

"Yeah, Kim?" I said softly, my chin resting atop her head.

"If you still want to, I'm ready now."

I knew exactly what she meant, the very thing that I had spent so many of my teenaged nights dreaming about. Did I want to take her up to my room right that very moment and make love to her over and over again? You're damn right, I did. Still…

"I don't know if that's such a great idea right now," I murmured in reply, kicking myself mentally as the words slipped from my mouth.

"You don't want to?" she asked in surprise.

I let out a half-chuckle at that. "It's not that I don't want to, Kim," I answered, looking her in the eyes. She had often told me that my eyes gave away the truth when my words refused to, but even though I was speaking the truth in this situation, I still wanted her to see it in my eyes. "Honestly, there's very little I could think of that I want more than you, Beautiful. It's just — it's been so long, you know? I don't want us to just jump headfirst into things before we've even figured out what _us_ is."

Oddly enough, that earned me not only a smile, but a soft kiss as well. "I can't think of anyone else I'd rather wait for," she whispered over my lips.

"I promise I won't make you wait too long," I replied with a wink.

Smiling brightly, she returned her head to my chest, only to pull it back a few moments later. "Can I ask you something?"

"Me and Katherine?" I countered, somehow sensing that this was where she was heading.

"H-how did you know I was going to ask?"

I shrugged. "Lucky guess, I guess."

"I hate how well you know me," she muttered, shaking her head while smiling despite herself. "If you don't want to tell me, you don't have to. I just —"

"We did," I interrupted, nodding. "I would've rather had my first time with you — every time, for that matter — but all things considered…"

The confirmation that my relationship with Katherine had eventually progressed to a physical one did not seem to surprise Kimberly, but it did look like it stung a bit. For a moment, I thought she was going to get mad, but then another smile crossed her lips. "Well," she replied, holding me just a little tighter than before, "I hope she was at least a good teacher."

In the back of my mind, I had a feeling that it would not be long before Kimberly was able to make that decision for herself. At the forefront of my mind, though, our argument from earlier remained in a constant state of replay. Was I really about to open myself back up to her, even though I had been so convinced just a few short hours ago that that was not something I could do right now?

Before I could sort it out in my head, though, she interrupted my thoughts by saying, "Hey, I just got an idea."

Looking down at her, I said, "Oh yeah? What's that?"

"Well, you know how we both really want Billy and 'Sha here for the memorial?" she asked. I just nodded as she went on, "Since we can't go get them ourselves, do you think Andros could contact them?"

All at once I felt like the world's biggest idiot.

"Oh man," I muttered, shaking my head.

"What? Not a good idea?" she asked.

"No, it's a fantastic idea," I replied, grinning. "I just can't believe that I didn't think of it sooner. You're amazing, Beautiful, I swear. Come on, my communicator's upstairs. I can contact him that way."

And so we did. Without even realizing it, this was also the very first time we had ever been alone in a bedroom without some kind of adult chaperone in the house or the fear of one walking through the front door at any given moment.

As I sat down near the head of my bed with my communicator now in hand, Kimberly stretched out across the bed with my lap as her pillow. Smiling down at her, I began running my free hand through her hair as I input Andros' specific frequency into the communicator. Once I had found it, I sent the page and waited for him to reply.

It took only a few seconds before his voice sounded through the communicator, saying, "This is Andros, I read you."

"Andros, it's Tommy," I said. "How's it going?"

"I'm good, Tommy. And you?" he asked.

"Oh," I started, looking at Kimberly for a moment, "about as well as can be expected."

Kimberly smiled up at me as Andros went on, "That's good to hear. So what can I do for you, Tommy?"

"Alright, I'll just cut to the chase," I began. "There are two Rangers I served with that I haven't been able to get in touch with. One is somewhere in Africa, and the other is on Aquitar working with the Aquitian Rangers. I don't know how to get a hold of either of them to tell them about the memorial, and since none of the other Rangers know what I'm doing yet, using the Power to find them would lead to a ton of questions that I'm just not prepared to answer yet."

"So you want me to contact them as some sort of third-party intermediary?" asked Andros.

Releasing the hold on my communicator button so he could not hear me, I looked down at Kimberly and muttered, "And you said _I_ sound like Billy?" She giggled and slapped my leg playfully as I reconnected to Andros and said, "Do you think you could?"

"Well, I certainly could, and I'd be more than happy to do it if you want me to," he started, Kimberly's eyes immediately widening in excitement as Andros went on, "But wouldn't it be considered a bit…_overkill_ by Earth customs to tell someone the same thing twice?"

"Huh?" I replied blankly. It was all I could think to say.

Andros laughed. "There was more to Zordon's video than what I could tell you that night, Tommy. In fact, there still is. But part of what he asked me to do was contact Billy and Aisha for you, since you wouldn't know how to get in touch with them. Aisha should be arriving on Thursday, and the Aquitians have arranged transport for Billy to bring him here on Friday. Delphine sends her condolences, as well. She says they wish they could attend but, you know, the whole living on a planet full of water thing…"

Kimberly was now out of her lying position and sitting as close to me as humanly possible, listening eagerly as I — relatively shocked by what Andros had just told me — remained silent for quite some time. Only when Kimberly elbowed me in the ribs was I able to respond. "Well, that's great news; glad to hear it. Thanks, Andros."

"No problem," said Andros, "Anything else?"

"Nope, that's it," I answered.

"Alright, then I'll see you on Saturday," he said.

"Saturday it is. Tommy out," I replied, ending the transmission.

As soon as I did, Kimberly began clutching my elbow with what felt like every ounce of strength her five-foot-three-inch frame could muster. "I can't believe it, Tommy. This is amazing!"

"Yeah, it is pretty cool, huh?" I said, giving her a smile.

"It's better than cool, Tommy," she stated matter-of-factly. "This is the first time all of us are going to be together. I mean, think about it. There's going to be, like, twenty Rangers there." But then her excited expression suddenly grew solemn as she murmured, "I just wish it were under better circumstances."

She lowered her head and gave a sniffle, causing me to immediately wrap her up in my arms, my face resting on her shoulder. "I know it hurts," I said softly. "And no matter how bad it hurts for me, I know it hurts a hundred times more for you. I wish I could —"

But she was cutting me off before I could finish. "What do you mean by that? That it hurts a hundred times more for me?" she questioned.

"I just —" I paused for a moment, wanting to make sure I worded what I was about to say in the best possible way. "I know what Zordon meant to you, Beautiful. And maybe I'm wrong here, but knowing you the way I do — or at least think I do, anyway — I feel like it was different for you, your relationship with him."

"Different in what way?" she asked. "I'm sorry; I just don't understand what you're trying to get at here, Tommy."

I let out a sigh as it became clear that this was not a topic I could beat around the bush about until she figured it out on her own. "Can I just be blunt?" I asked.

"Please," she replied, sounding almost relieved.

"Okay," I said, nodding. "Trying to look at things from your perspective, I feel like Zordon to you was what you always wanted your dad to be. Zordon was always there, reliable whenever you needed him…I'm not trying to be mean at all, Kim, but let's face it; your dad was never really that guy for you."

"I know," she muttered distantly, and that was all she said. I had been expecting more from her — much more, in fact — but apparently I had broached a topic that she did not want to discuss any further, and I was okay with that.

Shifting my hold on Kimberly to just her hands, I slowly stood up and pulled her onto her feet. "Come on," I murmured, smiling down at her as I took my thumb and wiped a single stray tear from her cheek. "Help me finish up in the kitchen and then we'll go out and find something fun to do, okay?"

With a smile, she agreed, and soon we were back in the kitchen, cleaning up the rest of the breakfast dishes, laughing and joking like nothing had happened at all. Once we were done, I left Kimberly in the living room while I went to take a shower, and shortly thereafter found myself faced with yet another dilemma.

"What the hell am I going to wear?" I said to myself, standing in my closet with a towel around my waist. Perhaps out of instinct, I reached for something red, only to put it back immediately in exchange for a white, collared button-up with long sleeves. "Hope she likes it," I murmured as I buttoned the shirt up, leaving the top three buttons undone.

When I returned to the living room a few minutes later, she was watching sports highlights on ESPN. As a brief aside, I'd just like to go on record here as saying any gorgeous woman who likes SportsCenter and wants to sleep with you sooner rather than later is worth keeping around as long as you possibly can.

"Ready to go?" I asked, standing near the kitchen entrance.

"Yep," said Kimberly, smiling and nodding. Turning off the television, she stood up and questioned, "Where are we going?"

"I'm not sure," I answered, shrugging. "I thought we'd just hop on the freeway and drive until we came across something."

"Sounds good to me," she replied, walking towards me. Or, at least, I thought she was walking towards me. As it were, she was actually heading for the kitchen, but that didn't prevent me from getting what I wanted.

As she passed me, I called out, "Hey," and gently grabbed her wrist. She froze and turned to look at me, at which point I effortlessly pulled her in and kissed her, catching her off guard just as she had done to me earlier. And just like earlier, soon she was returning the kiss as well.

When we finally broke apart, our foreheads remained pressed together. Breathing heavily, I whispered over her lips, "I never want to kiss anyone else again." Such was the power she held over me. Even when I wanted so badly not to succumb, I simply could not help myself. Deep down, I knew that I loved her just as much now as I had when we were together.

Which, of course, was a bit frightening in and of itself, but I did not have much time to think on it. As soon as I had made my proclamation, she grinningly replied, "Good," and then she was kissing me again, leaving me to wonder in the back of my mind if we were ever going to get out of the house.

Eventually, we were able to, though, and soon we were in the black Jeep I had purchased shortly before moving to Reefside. Considering the two miles of rough terrain that had to be navigated to reach my house, the Jeep was very much a necessary addition to what was quickly becoming a collection of cars.

I still had the red Chevy S-10 pickup that my parents had given me for my sixteenth birthday, and as a retirement gift from racing from my uncle, John, I became the owner of his 1967 gunmetal-black Camaro. Seeing as how I had no real need for them out here, though, they stayed at my parent's house in Angel Grove. I'm pretty sure my dad drove the Camaro way more than he ever admitted to, but that's another story entirely.

Anyway, I don't even know how we made it all the way to Valencia without finding anything to do, but as we navigated Interstate-Five it became immediately clear how the rest of this Saturday was going to be spent. As soon as Kimberly set her sights on the massive stretch of giant roller coasters and thrill rides in the distance that was Six Flags Magic Mountain, her eyes lit up and I smiled knowingly.

"Six Flags then?" I asked.

"Can we?"

I just winked and quickly swerved right onto the exit ramp, watching Kimberly from the corner of my eye as her expression grew more and more excited with each passing moment. With one hand on the wheel, I reached out with my free hand and took hers nearest me, which left Kimberly smiling widely.

"I haven't been to an amusement park since before I moved," she announced. "I'm so excited."

"Me too," I said, giving her hand a squeeze.

Once we were inside the gates — which took nearly half an hour with drive time, finding a parking spot, and purchasing admission passes — it was like we were fifteen or sixteen all over again. No sooner had we slipped through the turnstiles than Kimberly was grabbing my hand and excitedly pulling me along as she ran off in search of God knows what.

And when it came to the rides, she was as fearless as I remembered. With Katherine, while a great girl in her own right, it would have been like pulling teeth to get her on something like _Batman: The Ride_, or _The Riddler's Revenge, _the world's tallest, fastest, and longest stand-up roller coaster. With Kimberly, though, she was suggesting new rides before I could even think about them. Being something of a self-admitted thrill seeker myself, I absolutely loved every second of it.

It was nearly eleven o'clock in the morning when we got there, and nearly six that evening by the time hopping on yet another ride stopped sounding fun. Considering the longest we had ever stopped on the way to a new ride was to use the bathroom or grab a drink from a vending machine, we had pretty much spent the last seven hours either on rides or waiting in line for them. So, as we sat down to a dinner of gigantic cheeseburgers, mounds of piping hot French fries, and triple-thick milkshakes at Johnny Rocket's, it was Kimberly who suggested a trip to the midway once we had finished eating.

I, of course, thinking like a true man at this point, agreed immediately, unable to think of anything other than the look on Kimberly's face when I won her a teddy bear bigger than her whole body in some impossibly rigged carnival game. Unfortunately, I wasn't very good at tossing rings or knocking over milk bottles with baseballs, nor did I have much luck with throwing a football through a tire or trying to pop balloons with darts.

All the while, Kimberly was laughing it up, enjoying more and more each and every time she beat me in another stupid game. I had just gone through another thorough defeat — this one shooting moving plastic ducks with BB guns — when I saw sure victory up ahead. I was going to wipe that smug grin off of her face for sure!

"Come on," I said, smiling at my imminent victory as I took her hand and pulled her towards the High Striker. You know, the one where you swing a mallet as hard as you can and try to ring the bell at the top of the tower…yeah, there was no way I was losing this one.

"Oh, this is _reaaaal_ fair, Tommy," said Kimberly, rolling her eyes once she realized where we were going.

"Sounds like someone's a little scared," I teased.

"Me?" she replied, shaking her head. "No, you must have me mistaken for some other girl. I'll kick your ass in any game you want, Mister."

Laughing, I said, "We'll see about that one."

As we waited in line, we continued bantering back and forth constantly about who was going to win, until finally I had had enough and suggested we make things a bit more interesting by placing a little friendly wager on the game.

"Oh yeah?" she said to that. I just nodded. "What are the stakes?"

"What do you want?"

Wearing a thoughtful expression, she said nothing for nearly a full minute before finally realizing what she wanted. "If I win, you have to cut your hair."

"What!?" I almost shouted. That was the last thing I had been expecting, to say the least. Kimberly had always loved my long hair, never missing an opportunity to tell me so when we had dated. Perhaps she knew how much I loved it as well, though…

"That's what I want," she repeated, grinning with the knowledge that she had truly backed me into a corner. "Or are you too scared to take the bet?"

Chuckling like it was no big deal, I replied, "Pfft, you wish. I'll take that bet. But if I win, you have to do whatever I say for the next five days. You can't argue, or whine, or complain, or ask questions…anything I tell you to do, you do it. How's that for a challenge, little miss free spirit?"

"Five days?" she sputtered.

"That's what I want," I said. Now it was my turn to grin. "Or are you too scared to take the bet?"

Rolling her eyes, she gritted her teeth and muttered, "Fine, you're on."

We shook hands to seal the bet just as we reached the front of the line. Once the man in front of us had failed miserably at trying to impress his date, I paid for our turns, took the mallet, and extended it towards Kimberly. "Ladies first," I said with a sarcastically sweet tone of voice.

"No, Tommy," she replied in a nearly identical tone, pushing the mallet back towards me, "It's beast before beauty."

I think she expected that to faze me. Truth be told, I'm kind of surprised it didn't. Still, without missing a beat, I fired back, "Well then you should _definitely_ be going first."

Grabbing the mallet, she closed every inch of distance between us and, so that only I could hear her, said, "Either you swing this damn thing right now, or I'm going to announce to everyone here, as loud as I possibly can, what a pansy little girl you are because you're afraid that all five-foot-three and a hundred-and-two pounds of me is going to beat you."

_Damn_, I said to myself. She was good.

Staring at her with narrowed eyes, as if this would somehow change her mind, I quickly realized this was a battle I could not win. "Fine; give me the stupid mallet," I replied, yanking it from her grasp. Walking over to the target with purposeful steps, I used two hands and swung the mallet back as hard as I possibly could. Just as I started to bring it down, though, Kimberly yelled at me and, while I couldn't quite make out what she said, it was inappropriate enough to make my shot go off center.

Still, the little red light made it nearly to the top, close enough that I was still convinced Kimberly would be my maid/errand girl/essay-writer for the next five days. Sneering at her as I handed off the mallet, I muttered, "Cheat all you want; you still can't beat me."

I should have known better.

I really, really, _really_ should have known better.

Why wouldn't she have made the little light go all the way to the top? Why would I even _think_ that I had a chance? Had I really learned nothing in almost six years of knowing this God forsaken woman? Apparently not…

The whole walk back to the car — I was so emotionally deflated at this point that we had to leave, not to mention I had lost all desire to ever visit another amusement park again — the only sound Kimberly made was the buzzing hum of an electric razor. For my part, I could do little more than run my hand through my hair repeatedly, grabbing fistfuls of it at random intervals and staring at them in stunned disbelief.

Every martial artist I had idolized growing up wore their hair long, which is why I had grown it out in the first place. I loved having long hair, and most women I'd talked to loved it as well. It was hard to comprehend how I would continue on without it, almost as if I thought I was Samson from the Bible and that my strength resided solely within my hair.

"You know," Kimberly began as we settled into my Jeep, softly running her fingers through my hair while using real words for the first time in well over fifteen minutes, "I really am going to miss this."

"Enough to let me keep it," I asked as I started the car and backed out of our parking spot.

Kimberly laughed. "Not that much," she answered, smiling, "Sorry."

"Yeah," I muttered, shaking my head. "You're really going to make me go through with this, aren't you?"

"Of course I am," she replied, as though my question were entirely too stupid to have even been asked. "Come on, Tommy; if you had beaten me, you probably would have made me push the freaking car home by myself. And besides, it's not like it won't grow back."

I rolled my eyes at that. "You do realize that it took me seven years to get to the mullet you saw freshman year, and then another four years to get this length, right?"

"Well then you already have something to look forward to for the new millennium, don't you?"

I couldn't help but chuckle. "Yeah, I guess so."

By the time we got back to Reefside, it was nearly eleven o'clock at night. Once we had come to a stop in my gravel driveway, I hopped out and walked around the back of the Jeep to find Kimberly standing with her door shut and her eyes towards the sky. "I almost forgot what they looked like," she murmured, apparently alerted to my presence by the crunching of gravel beneath my feet as I walked towards her.

"What's that?" I asked, coming to a stop at her side.

"The stars," she answered, still staring upwards as a smile formed on her lips. "They're awfully hard to see like this when you live in the middle section of a high-rise apartment building in the heart of downtown Miami."

Smiling to myself, I put my arm around her shoulder and quietly said, "Yeah, they are beautiful, aren't they?"

"Yeah," she said, nodding. "They are."

"Yeah," I replied softly. Brushing some of her hair back, I brought my lips to her ear and whispered, "Not nearly as beautiful as you, though."

"You're sweet, Tommy," she said, giving me a kiss as a reward for my compliment, "But you're still not keeping your hair."

Before I could reply, she had taken off running up the path towards the front door, laughing at me triumphantly the entire time. "Dammit, woman, you should not be able to read right through me like that!" I bellowed as I walked after her.

Seeing as how very few people even knew about this house, I rarely left the door locked — though I certainly would have if I had known we were going to be gone all day — so Kimberly was already stretched out on the living room couch when I finally made it inside.

Walking into the kitchen, I noticed that the red light on my answering machine was flashing, so I hit the "Play" button and listened as I moved to the refrigerator for a bottle of water. It turned out to be two voicemail messages from guys I went to school with about parties happening that night, but I didn't really feel like going out again and, after asking Kimberly, she didn't want to either. Instead, she left me in the kitchen, went into the living room, grabbed a VHS tape from the stack next to the television, walked back over to me, and then somehow convinced me that it would be a good idea to watch _"Titanic," _— quite possibly the most romantic movie of the decade — in my room.

Again, I feel the need to interject something here. The only reason I even had that movie at all was because Katherine brought it over one night when my parents were out of town and forgot to take it home when she left the next morning. I didn't even realize I had the damn thing until I packed everything for the move to Reefside; by then she was off in London, and shipping a movie to her that she had obviously forgotten or didn't care about really didn't seem like a very sensible choice at the time.

Okay, enough of that; back to yet another ridiculous predicament that I had allowed myself to get sucked into.

We were half-sitting half-lying on top of the covers, both wearing pajama bottoms and t-shirts, and watching Leonardo DiCaprio try to win over Kate Winslet on a ship that we both knew was going to sink in the end. Kimberly was tucked in against my side with my arm slinking down her back, resting atop her thigh in a position I knew could potentially be dangerous.

Still, even though it went against everything I had told her earlier, I was starting to re-think my position on taking things further with her. It seemed kind of obvious that there was something she was trying to imply with her choice of films, but again, if something was going to happen, I did not want to be the one to instigate it. However, when the scene came on where Leo's Jack draws Kate's Rose in the nude, I knew it was only a matter of time before something happened, regardless of which one of us made the first move.

No longer watching the movie, Kimberly flipped onto her side facing me. Her fingertips soon found my chest, which was nothing new, but then she began nuzzling it was well. To top it off, she started making these little noises that sounded something like a purring moan.

"I have to confess something," she murmured shortly after this had started.

"What's that?" I asked, testing the waters by slowly inching my hand from her thigh to her butt.

"I can't let you cut your hair," she answered, apparently uncaring to where my hands were.

"Seriously?" I replied eagerly. At that moment I was ready to cave in just out of sheer gratefulness to her.

"Well, not until we…you know —" she said, smiling sheepishly.

"What are you talking about?" I said with a half-laugh.

"Okay, so I used to daydream in class about what it would be like when you and I finally made love for the first time," she murmured, causing my eyes to widen in surprise. "Hey, guys aren't the only ones that can fantasize, you know."

"Fair enough," I said, grinning.

"Anyway," she continued, "Whenever I've thought about us in that way, you always had long hair. If my past self finds out I let you cut your hair beforehand, she will find a way to time travel to the future and kick my ass; I can guarantee it."

The more she talked, the more I laughed. I loved that so much about her; she could always, regardless of my mood, no matter how crappy a day I was having, make me laugh.

"You do realize you just gave me a clear path to keeping my hair long, right?" I said, eyeing her with a wide smile. "All I have to do is hold out and say I'm not ready, and Tommy gets to keep his wonderful hair intact."

Kimberly smiled. "I know," she replied softly. "But like I told you this morning in the basement, I'm willing to wait."

"Yeah," I murmured, pressing a single kiss to her lips, "But you know something?"

"What?"

"I'm not."

And with that, I kissed her with everything I had. For the first time ever, I allowed my hands to roam, knowing she would not stop me. Of course, why would I be right about anything today?

Before I knew what was happening, she was pushing me back. "Wait," she breathed heavily. "What about your hair?"

I laughed out of pure relief. "Like you said," I answered, kissing her once again, "It'll eventually grow back."

And this, sadly — well, for you, at least — is where I have to stop in regards to this particular night. I'm sure you would love the juicy details of what happened, but Kimberly would kill me if she ever found out I gave a detailed explanation of our first night together to a complete stranger. Sorry. But I will say this: life in the middle of nowhere became a whole hell of a lot more interesting over the course of the next few days.

Still, it should come as no surprise that the first thing Kimberly said to me the next morning was that _she_ was ready for _my_ haircut. Ha! Funny how that works…

Unfortunately, my parents had instilled a very real sense of honor in me at a very young age, and my word had always been my bond. After breakfast and a shower that lasted a bit too long, if you catch my drift, we were in my Jeep and on the way to town, at which point Kimberly resumed her wonderful buzzing noises from the night before.

And, to make matters worse, she informed me that we would not be going to a regular barber shop like I had hoped. We were going to a stylist, someone who, in her words, would not just cut my hair, but "sexify" it as well, which I could do little more than roll my eyes in dismay at.

Great, now not only was I losing the long hair that I loved so much, but it was going to be replaced with some crazy, European discotheque style that was almost guaranteed to make me the butt of even more jokes from my former male teammates.

It was only ten a.m. and I could already tell that today was going to be a very, _very_ long day.


	5. The Truth Approaches

_**Title: The Hexagon**_

_**Chapter Four — The Truth Approaches**_

_**Original Posting Date: February 25, 2010**_

--

Gripping the edge of my bathroom sink with both hands, I stood hunched over the empty basin, staring at my reflection in the mirror, unable to believe the image looking back at me. My curly, shoulder-length locks were completely gone; and while my hair was still relatively long compared to most men, what felt like the little that remained had been gelled into some crazy arrangement of spikes that, at first glance, made me feel something like a porcupine.

I just could not believe that, out of all the cuts and styles imaginable, Kimberly had chosen this one. Aside from shaving my entire head completely bald, this seemed like quite possibly the most drastically different style she could have chosen.

Crazily enough, though, the more I stared at myself, the more I started to like this new look. Sure, it was a far cry from everything I had known for the last decade-plus, but it looked pretty good and I could only imagine how much easier this style was going to be to live with. No more having to spend hours straightening my hair, no more whips in the face while throwing kicks…yeah, I could definitely get used to this.

"Alright," I murmured, turning around to face Kimberly, who had been standing behind me the entire time with her arms folded across her chest. "I kind of like it."

"Ha! I told you that you would!" she exclaimed, grinning victoriously. Stepping towards me, she reached out and started touching the spikes. "Trust me, Tommy, it looks way sexy."

"Yeah?" I replied, smiling.

"Yeah," said Kimberly, nodding. "I might have to lock you in a cage and take you back to Florida with me to make sure the girls here don't tear you apart."

I just laughed at that.

The rest of our Sunday and the next few days that followed were as great as I could have ever hoped for. Not only were we taking full advantage of our leap into certain, ahem, _adult_ _behaviors_, but there was so much for to it than just that. Honestly, the connection I was feeling with her after just a few short days made it seem like the last two years apart hadn't even happened at all, like we had been together that entire time with our bond just growing stronger and stronger with every moment spent in each other's company.

After a Monday spent alone and bored in the house with no means of transportation, Kimberly asked me if she could ride with me to school the next day and then "borrow" my Jeep until I was done with class. I didn't even ask if she knew how to drive a car with a manual transmission, I just said okay because that was how much I trusted her.

We talked about everything: life, family, friends, our fears, our goals…everything. When I had to read for class, she simply laid between my legs with her head on my chest. In the mornings, we went for runs together and in the evenings, we either went to the gym or worked out in my backyard; on those nights, I would do a long kata on the lawn while Kimberly stretched and practiced some light gymnastics on the padded mats I had used in Angel Grove for home sparring sessions with my teammates, but that had otherwise sat dormant in the garage since the move. She even tried to help me cook a couple of times, though she was more of a disaster in the kitchen now than I had ever been when first starting out.

But on top of all that, the most important thing for me was that Kimberly and I genuinely had fun together. We spent afternoons walking the streets of Reefside, holding hands and eating ice cream cones; chasing each other through the woods behind my house, completely uncaring to the fact that it was raining outside; even just lying around and doing nothing was fun for us. We were always laughing — regardless of what we were doing — and not just about everything, but about nothing at all as well.

Honestly, I had forgotten how good it felt to have someone like that in my life; I could show Kimberly every side of me and I just…I knew in my heart, with this incredibly profound sense of certainty, that her opinion of me would neither change nor waver. Without a doubt, I accepted that I had fallen head over heels in love with her all over again, so much so that I refused to allow myself to even think about what was going to happen on Sunday when she had to go back to Florida.

And whether or not she had thought about it as well, I did not have even the slightest clue. She made no mention of her rapidly approaching departure date, and so I did not either. For as much as I wanted to know where we stood, even more than that I did not want to force something on Kimberly that she was not yet ready to deal with.

But as the days passed, I found myself thinking more and more on what was going to happen to us. I mean, we hadn't even talked about what _we_ were at that point; not even briefly. Would she want to try things long-distance again? Was she thinking about a possible return to California? One thing I could not deal with was uncertainty — I hated that feeling of no control more than anything — but unfortunately, that was all I had.

Even as we woke in each other's arms on Friday morning, knowing most of the Rangers would be arriving throughout the rest of the day, neither one of us wanted to acknowledge that, at least for the time being, our time together was quickly drawing to a close. Truth be told, though, we didn't really have the time to talk about it even if we had wanted to.

During the week, Kimberly had suggested a Friday night gathering of all the Rangers at my house since there were quite a few of us who had yet to meet each other. I had agreed and made the plans, but there was still some shopping that needed to be done, and I was pretty sure Kimberly's idea of "a few small decorations" meant that I was going to be pulling confetti out of my hair for the next three days.

Since all of us, including myself, hadn't met everyone yet — though once I met the Silver Space Ranger that would no longer be the case — the party seemed like a good idea. Plus, my work for Zordon played a major factor in my decision to host the event as well. Someday, there would be more Rangers than just the eighteen of us, and learning to network with those Rangers was going to be an important part of my work. This party would be the perfect place to test the waters to see what kind of support I might get; subtly, of course, though. I still didn't want anyone beyond Andros and Kimberly knowing what I was doing yet.

The only one who was not going to be attending tonight was a very disappointed Justin, who had a karate tournament in Los Angeles this evening, but he assured me he would be there tomorrow for the service.

By four o'clock that afternoon, we were back at my house unpacking everything. While I went to work on putting the groceries away in the kitchen, Kimberly started in on her decorating, which unsurprisingly turned into a task of monumental proportions. Streamers in every Ranger color hung throughout the house; a painted banner that read _"Welcome, Rangers"_ greeted anyone who walked through the front door; and she had even found Power Ranger paper plates, cups, and napkins at a party store in town.

"So what do you think?" she asked, once she had finished.

It definitely screamed her name, that's for sure. Being the smart guy for once, though, I simply kissed her on the cheek, told her I thought it looked great, and that everyone was going to love it.

Let's just say she was very pleased with my response.

But as time wore on and it grew closer to eight o'clock, when everyone was going to start arriving, so too did my urgency increase to talk to her about Sunday. I didn't want to make a wrong move, though, or say the wrong thing, but I also wanted to talk to her soon because I knew alone time would be limited in the coming days.

By the time I had finally talked myself into it, it was already seven-thirty; Kimberly was standing at the kitchen counter with her back to me when I found her a few minutes later, pouring herself a cup of Sprite from one of the many two-liter bottles I had purchased at Costco. Silently, I crept up behind her and placed both hands on the counter, forming a little box around her.

Brushing back some of her hair, I started placing little kisses on her neck. As she moaned softly, her hand went to the back of my neck, holding me in place. "I don't want you to leave, Beautiful," I whispered between kisses.

Almost immediately, she had let go of me and was pushing herself through the barrier that was my left arm. Just as fast, though, I grabbed her wrist and pulled her back around to face me. "Kim —" I tried again, but this time she cut me off before I could finish.

"I don't want to leave either, Tommy," she admitted in a quiet, quivering voice. "These last few days have been something like a dream for me, you honestly have no idea. But I can't just leave Florida, either. I have school, and girls down there who depend on me, and —"

Now it was her turn to be cut off, although it certainly wasn't by me. When the doorbell suddenly rang, my eyes immediately went to the clock on the microwave, which read seven thirty-eight. In my head, I cursed whichever one of them had decided that it would be a good idea to show up more than twenty minutes early.

Sighing, I returned my attention to Kimberly and said, "We need to talk before you leave."

Nodding, she just murmured, "I know," and then followed close behind me as I walked off to answer the door. To my surprise, it was both Jason and Zack on my doorstep; behind them, I could see the black Ford Explorer in the driveway that I knew to belonged to Zack's dad. However, it seemed like they were more surprised to see me than I was to see them, as if they had somehow accidentally come across the wrong secluded house in the middle of the woods.

"Dude," Zack breathed, reaching out and touching the spiked tips of my hair. "What the hell did you do to yourself?"

"Oh, that," I replied with a laugh, now understanding their surprise. "Yeah, well, you have this one to thank for that."

And with that, I stepped aside to show them that Kimberly was standing behind me. Excitement soon followed all the way around as everyone began greeting each other, but I knew it was only a matter of time before one of them asked the inevitable question. The only things I could wonder about were who was going to ask it and whether it would be asked of me or Kimberly.

Turns out it was Jason who asked the question, and he directed it to Kimberly.

"So, when did you get here?" he asked. And then it got worse, because he asked a follow-up question that left her no room to lie. "Is this why you haven't been answering your phone for the last week?"

Kimberly and I looked at each other, and I knew at once that we were sharing the same thought: why hadn't _we_ talked about this_ before_ people started showing up? Instead, she was forced to tell the truth, and you know, maybe that was a good thing. I personally had no qualms telling them exactly what had happened, I just didn't know if Kimberly was comfortable with that, and I wasn't going to go blabbing my mouth before I knew where she stood.

When she told them that she had been in Reefside since last Friday, Jason and Zack both shot me suspicious looks, but I simply put my head down and refused to acknowledge them. Later, when Kimberly wasn't around, I would tell them the basic truth — that we were sort of just playing it by ear for now and seeing where things went — but that was as much detail as they would get out of me.

"So tell us about this," Zack said to Kimberly, pointing at my head. "How'd you convince Fabio over here to ditch the ponytail?"

Of course, Kimberly got a kick out of telling them all about how she thoroughly whipped my ass in every midway game ever created, spending what felt like an inordinately long amount of time focused on the part about the High Striker. Even as she told the story I could see the looks of pure joy in the eyes of Jason and Zack growing by the moment; I knew right then and there that I was never, ever going to be able to live that story down.

Plus, thanks to the fact that everyone else was arriving pretty sporadically, I got to hear it repeated at least another half dozen or so times as new Rangers showed up; actually, it was probably more than that now that I think about it. Needless to say, I was growing very tired of hearing it by the time most of the Rangers had arrived.

Unfortunately, no one else seemed to be. In fact, if not directly telling the story themselves, Jason and Zack were encouraging Kimberly to repeat it each and every time someone else stepped through the threshold into my house.

Luckily for me, though, something soon happened that was big enough to keep everyone distracted from the story of how Tommy ended up with short hair, at least for the time being. And yes, I just intentionally referred to myself in the third person right there. Tommy's just cool like that.

Kimberly was midway through telling the story to a newly-arrived Rocky when the ground suddenly began to shake. Thankfully, it was not powerful enough to cause any damage, but it was definitely enough to give everyone a bit of a jolt, that's for sure. Kimberly ended up clutching my arm as a result of it, and I could not help but notice that Tanya had done the same to Adam, leaving me grinning until I saw the stunned look on Katherine's face.

She was staring right at me, and as her expression changed, it became apparent that she had quickly figured it out. Almost instantly, she looked away and immediately tried to strike up a conversation with the person closest to her, Trini, but it was not quick enough for me to miss the hurt in her eyes.

At that moment, I felt awful, but there were more important things to deal with right now, specifically what it was that had caused the ground to tremble. My house was nowhere near a fault line, I was positive of that because I had researched the area heavily prior to moving here. In fact, the last record of an earthquake in Reefside that I could find was from 1929.

So, unless that had been a once-every-seventy-years shake that we had just experienced, something else was most definitely going on. And from the look in Jason's eyes, I could tell that he and I were on the same page with this theory.

Without having to say anything at all, we split off and went in search of whatever it was that had caused the mini-quake, Jason heading for the front yard and me for the back. Fortunately, it was me who discovered the source of the disturbance. Things might have been a little confusing for Jason had he walked into the half-acre of open space in my backyard and seen a large space vessel docked on the lawn, from which a series of individuals were descending via a long boarding ramp.

Andros was the first to exit the ship, followed by Ashley, T.J., Cassie, Carlos, and two blonde haired people — first a male and then a female — that I did not recognize. The four I had known as Turbo Rangers were wearing gray uniforms that matched the one worn by Andros, only accented with their own individual Ranger color instead of red. The blonde female was wearing the same uniform as well, only it was accented with purple which, as I walked towards them, struck me as a bit odd considering that there had not been a Purple Ranger on the Space team. I knew at once, however, that the blonde male was the Silver Ranger; his style of uniform was similar to his teammates, only it was primarily black, instead of gray, and the accents were silver.

"Andros," I replied, extending my hand towards him once we were within greeting distance. "It's good to see you."

"And you," he replied, shaking my hand with a smile. "You know most of the team," he continued, making a sweeping motion with his arm towards the other Rangers.

"Yep," I said, nodding. I shared hugs and cheek kisses with Cassie and Ashley, shook hands with Carlos, and then found myself staring at the bald man in blue. We shared a knowing grin and then a handshake that turned into a half-hug, at which point I muttered in his ear, "You did good, bro; I knew I picked the right guy."

T.J. laughed. "Thanks, man."

"No worries," I said, nodding as I patted him on the shoulder before turning my attention to the blonde man in black. "And you must be the Silver Ranger, right?"

"That's me; the name's Zhane," he said, shaking my hand.

"Good to meet you, man," I replied, then looking to the blonde on his left. She had a tense look on her face that made her seem either uncomfortable or nervous, I couldn't tell which; maybe it was both.

"And this is Karone," Zhane quickly added. From the way he spoke, to the protective hand on the small of her back, I could tell at once that the relationship between these two was much more than that of just friends or teammates.

"Nice to meet you, Karone," I said with a smile, shaking her hand.

"Karone is my sister," Andros supplied, rejoining the conversation. "She was once Astronema, but Zordon's sacrifice purified her for good."

This, of course, immediately explained her expression.

"Evil spell?" I asked with a raised eyebrow, even though I pretty much already knew the answer.

"Yeah, something like that," answered Karone, wearing a slightly embarrassed look as she nodded her head.

"Hey, don't even worry about it," I said with a laugh. "I've been there and done that too. Twice, in fact; three if you count the evil clone made of me that had access to my old powers. Plus, off the top of my head, I can think of at least four of my teammates who've had it happen to them at one point or another as well. Trust me when I say you're in understanding company when it comes to that stuff."

That seemed to lighten her up considerably, and as I led them back to the house, I was pretty sure I heard Andros mutter, "See, I told you so," which made me laugh simply because it was exactly the type of thing I would have said to my brother.

Thinking of David, however, quickly sent my mind into a whirling frenzy. I hadn't even told Kimberly about him yet. As we approached the house, I made a mental reminder to tell her —even though I knew I would probably forget it in the end — and then forced my mind clear as we reached the porch.

"So what happened to the hair, man?" Carlos called out from behind.

Freezing on the spot, I looked down, shook my head, and laughed for a moment. Then I turned around, looked at Carlos, and said, "There's someone else who would rather tell you a whole lot more than I do. I'm sure you'll hear the story at least three times before the night is over man."

And with that, I turned back around and led the Space Rangers inside.

Much to my surprise, in the ten or so minutes that I had been gone, the remaining two Rangers had arrived as well. My guess was that Billy had been the most recent, because everyone was gathered around him and chatting excitedly. What was even more surprising, though, was that he looked exactly like the Billy I had chosen to remember. My last look at him up until now had been from a transmission via Aquitar, where we had all been forced to bear witness to the horrible side effects of his age regenerator device.

Apparently, though, Aquitar's Eternal Falls had done the trick.

"Hey, Billy!" I yelled, throwing up my arms as the Space Rangers and I entered the living room. "When'd you get here, bro?"

"I just arrived five minutes prior," he answered, grinning as he broke free from the others to greet me.

"Man, it's good to see you. How'd you get here?" I asked curiously as we shook hands and hugged briefly.

"The Aquitians provided a vessel for my return. I arrived at my parent's house in Angel Grove late last night," said Billy. "As to how I got here specifically…" he trailed off, looking back at Zack.

"He took the Radbug, man! And not on the ground, either!" exclaimed Zack, clapping his hands together. "I knew some of the Zack-man's style was eventually going to rub off on you, Billy."

Billy just laughed, and over his shoulder I could see the small, yellow-clad, braided-haired form that I knew at once to be my favorite Yellow. Though I loved the others as well, Aisha had given Kimberly a home to stay in during our junior year, when she otherwise would have had to move to Paris with her mother and soon-to-be step-father. For that, Aisha would always be my favorite, though I would never admit this to any of them.

"'Sha," I said simply, grinning widely.

"Tommy," she replied with just as big of a smile. "Come give Mama Bear some sugar."

Laughing, I said, "You know I'd do anything for you, 'Sha," and then gave her a hug and a kiss on the cheek. "I'm so glad Andros was able to get in touch with you. I felt like crap when none of us knew how to reach you."

"Yeah, well, that was mostly my fault, wasn't it?" said Aisha, flashing another smile as I gave a conceding nod. "Anyway, I'm back now, though; for good, too."

"Really?" I said in surprise.

"Yep," she nodded. "Working in Africa was great, but when Andros came and told me about what happened to Zordon, I realized that the people I wanted to be closest to were you guys…my family and my friends. Tanya's offered me her spare room until I can get my life here organized again, but yeah, I'm back."

"Aww man, that's so awesome!" I said, giving her another hug simply because I was so genuinely happy to hear the news. "What about you Billy?" I called out over my shoulder once I had released Aisha. "How long are you staying?"

Apparently, no one else had asked him this yet, because the room suddenly grew quiet and Billy's expression became one of clear discomfort. "Umm," he started, looking around awkwardly, "My return to Earth is permanent. I am, shall we say, 'no longer fit' to live amongst the Aquitians."

"What?" several people asked at once, leading to an uproarious chorus for answers that left Billy looking more and more uncomfortable by the moment.

Eventually, realizing that this was going nowhere fast and that Billy looked ready to puke all over my leather recliner, I groaned to myself and, as loudly as I possibly could, shouted, "HEY! EVERYBODY SHUT THE HELL UP!"

Sure it lacked subtlety, but it definitely did the trick.

"Jeez," I continued, shaking my head, "Give the man some breathing room and a chance to explain what's going on, for crying out loud. You're not sports reporters and he's not Michael freaking Jordan after a championship game, so relax."

With that, the embarrassment quickly shifted to most of my teammates, all of whom were swift to apologize for their outbursts. Once that was out of the way, Billy nodded and said, "You see, unbeknownst to me at the time, humans and Aquitians show intimacy in very different ways. Though Cestria and I loved each other, the inability to consummate our marriage became a problem, not just for her, but for the Aquitians as well. Apparently they only took me in as a favor to Zordon, and the only reason they let me stay once I had been cured in the Eternal Falls was because of my relationship with Cestria. Under normal circumstances, an off-worlder —especially an Earth-born human — would never be allowed on Aquitar. Of course, there were those few progressive thinkers who did not mind my presence — like Cestria and the Aquitian Rangers — but once Cestria and I agreed to end our marriage and part ways, not only did I lose any reason that I had to remain there, but the Aquitian government finally had a reason to deport me as well."

While most of the Rangers in attendance seemed appalled by the behavior of the Aquitian government, neither Andros, nor Zhane or Karone seemed even the least bit surprised. I, on the other hand, just found the whole story a bit odd, a notion that I soon conveyed to Billy.

"How so?" he questioned curiously.

"Well, I mean, if the Aquitians just brought you back to Earth yesterday, their decision to deport you must have happened pretty recently, right?" I replied, Billy nodding. "So don't you think it's kind of weird that all this stuff happened to you on Aquitar at the same time as everything else? Almost as if it was supposed to happen that way?"

"Are you inferring that Zordon somehow —?" started Billy, but Jason was cutting him off before he could finish.

"Yeah, you know, that actually makes sense. Nothing that happens with Zordon is ever coincidental. Like how he made Tommy the leader before I had even left the team, like he somehow knew I was going to leave before I did."

Sensing the direction that this conversation was heading, I silently cursed myself for stupidly opening this particular floodgate and quickly began wracking my brain for anything I could say to change the topic, but I could not think of one single thing. Fortunately, Kimberly was there to save me as always.

"Ahem!" she cleared her throat loudly. When she had my attention, she glared at me and discreetly tilted her head towards the Space Rangers.

I understood at once. "Oh, right!" I said, looking between my team and the Space team. "Guys," I continued, settling on my team, "For those of you who don't already know each other, this is most of the second Turbo team, and all of the Space team. Andros, Ashley, T.J., Cassie, Carlos, Zhane, and Karone…meet Jason, Zack, Trini, Kimberly, Billy, Adam, Rocky, Aisha, Katherine, and Tanya."

As the Rangers went about introducing themselves to each other individually, I noticed that Adam immediately — and almost instinctively — went to Carlos and greeted him much like I had done with T.J. However, there was also something else there that I could not quite put my finger on; the only thing I could even think of to compare it to was a little brother looking up to their older brother, with Carlos obviously being the younger brother in this particular analogy.

Deciding to investigate that one later, I disappeared into the kitchen to get something to drink and returned a few minutes later to find that everyone had bunched off into smaller groups. Ashley, Aisha, Tanya, and Trini were all together; as were Adam, Carlos, Zhane, Rocky, and Billy; Jason, Andros, and T.J.; and Katherine, Cassie, and Karone.

It took me nearly another minute of looking around to realize that Kimberly was nowhere in sight. Deciding that she must have gone off to use the bathroom, I walked over to the trio of leaders and slid in between Jason and T.J. Aside from Kimberly, who I already knew was with me, it was these three I wanted to focus on as far as future work with the Rangers.

Unfortunately, right now was not going to be the time for any recruiting. After nearly ten minutes of casual conversation, I looked around and discovered that Kimberly was still missing from the room. Wondering where she could possibly be, I quickly excused myself and went off to look for her.

I soon found that neither the bedrooms nor the bathrooms were occupied, and the television box atop the trap door was still in place, which meant she couldn't be in the basement. When I finally found her, it was in the backyard, and she was curled up in a ball on the long bench swing off to the side of the porch.

As I walked towards her, though, I froze at the sound of her sniffling. She was crying and I had no idea why…

Once I had regained my composure, I shook my head clear and continued to the swing, sitting down next to her and wrapping my arms around her warmly. "What's wrong, Beautiful?" I murmured, pressing a soft kiss to the side of her head.

"N-nothing," she replied, her face buried in her arms. "Just go b-back inside and h-have fun."

"I would love to, Kim," I said, rubbing her back up and down gently, "But without you there, I can only do the first one. So why don't you tell me what's bothering you, we'll work it out like we always do, and then we can _both _go back in and have a good time. I mean, is it something that I did?"

With something of a crying laugh, Kimberly looked up at me with tear-stained eyes, shaking her head vehemently as she replied, "God no, Tommy, of course not."

"Then what is it?" I said quietly. "Please, Beautiful, just talk to me."

Kimberly rubbed her eyes and let out a sniffle before saying, "It really is nothing. I'm just being stupid, Tommy."

Letting out a small chuckle, I said, "Maybe or maybe not; why don't you tell me what's going on and we'll find out."

Sighing, she shook her head slowly and said, "I-I saw Kat walking over to talk to Cassie and it was pretty obvious that they knew each other. Then a couple seconds later Cassie pulled over that girl in the purple and introduced her to Kat. I was a few feet away and locked eyes with Kat, hoping she'd introduce me too, but instead she looked at me like she hated me and then went back to talking with the other girls, pretending like she hadn't even seen me in the first place."

That caught me off guard a little bit. Even though I had seen Katherine's hurt reaction to me and Kimberly, I had not been expecting any sort of hostility on her part, mostly because I had never known Katherine to have a mean bone in her body. Truth be told, it was Kimberly being less than friendly towards Katherine that I had been worried about, not the other way around.

"That's so weird. Kat's not usually like that," I replied, taking Kimberly's hands in mine, "Tell you what, let's go inside, you can get cleaned up if you want, and then I'll introduce you to everyone myself, okay?"

That seemed to do the trick. Taking Kimberly through the side entrance to the garage and into the house that way, so everyone else couldn't see that she had been crying, I left her in my bathroom and returned to the party in the living room. Once again, I joined up with the three other leaders.

"Where'd you run off to?" asked Jason, raising an eyebrow.

"To see where Kim ran off to," I answered, jokingly rolling my eyes.

"Everything okay?" he asked, taking a drink from his Turbo Ranger paper cup.

"Yeah," I replied with a chuckle. "For now, at least."

Jason laughed knowingly, and as the three of them resumed their conversation about who had the best Zord, I began to do a scan of the room. Everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves, even Zack, who looked slightly horrified at a dance Billy was showing him. Unlike anything I had ever seen before, I could only assume that this particular dance was one that Billy had picked up in his time on Aquitar.

Then my eyes found the two Pink Rangers and Karone, specifically Katherine, who was staring right at me expressionlessly. The moment our eyes met, though, she immediately looked away. What had gotten into her? I wondered.

Continuing my surveying of the room, I looked to my left and saw Kimberly coming out of the hallway, her face showing no signs of her earlier breakdown. When she noticed me, I gave her a smile and beckoned for her to come over.

"Tommy, did you hear me?" said Andros, causing me to look away from Kimberly.

"Huh?" I said blankly.

"I said, did you hear me?" he repeated, "But obviously you didn't."

Laughing, I shook my head and said, "No, man, I didn't. Sorry."

With a shake of his own head, Andros replied, "I was saying that I needed to talk to you about something in private when you have a minute."

"Oh, uh, sure," I said, pretending not to notice the suspicious look on Jason's face. Fortunately, Kimberly was nearly at my side, giving me the perfect opportunity to switch gears. "Guys," I continued, looking between Andros and T.J., "I want you to meet Kim Hart, Earth's very first Pink Ranger."

"And the love of Tommy's life," Jason snickered beneath his breath. Next moment, though, he was left doubled over and clutching his midsection, the result of Kimberly slamming the side of her fist as hard as she could into his stomach.

Apparently she had heard him too.

"It's nice to meet you both," she said, flashing bright smiles as she shook their hands, pretending like the whole thing with Jason hadn't even happened.

T.J, however, could not. "Damn, that was impressive," he said with a hearty laugh. "Please don't hit me though. I'm a lover, not a fighter."

Kimberly laughed. "Don't worry; I only hit morons."

"Not very nice," groaned Jason.

Looking down at him, I just shook my head and returned my attention to Andros and T.J. "Anyway, I'm going to go introduce Kim to some of the others. Andros, we'll take care of the other stuff a little later, alright?"

"Sounds good," said Andros, nodding.

And with that, I put my arm around Kimberly's shoulder and started towards Katherine, Cassie, and Karone. As I led her towards the girls, I knew Katherine would be less than happy with how close Kimberly was to me — in more ways than one — but I honestly did not care. If she wanted to be mean to Kimberly for no reason at all then I was going to give her the same treatment.

"What did you mean by the 'other stuff?'" asked Kimberly softly, looking up at me.

"I don't even know, to be honest," I answered, shrugging. "Andros just said he needed to talk to me alone about something. That's all I know so far."

"Hmm," she replied thoughtfully, leaving it at that as we reached the trio of women, who had taken seats around one end of my long dining room table. I couldn't help but notice that Kimberly's demeanor had shifted considerably from outside at this point. She did not seem concerned about Katherine at all; in fact, she looked quite confident with herself, and she had every right to.

"Hey there, ladies," I said, announcing our presence. "Sorry to interrupt, I just wanted to introduce you to Kim here. Kim, this is Cassie, Karone, and you obviously know Kat already. Kim was our first Pink Ranger."

Katherine and Kimberly acknowledged each other with smiles that would have seemed pleasant enough to anyone who did not know them like I did, but then Kimberly was moving on and shaking hands with Karone.

"Oh, wow, it's so nice to finally meet you!" exclaimed Cassie, standing up and catching Kimberly completely by surprise with a big hug. "I'm only a year younger than you, but you have no idea how much I looked up to you growing up. You were, like, my hero! I even dressed up as you for a Halloween party one year! Well, not _you_, obviously, but you know what I mean…"

Kimberly seemed completely taken aback by that, her cheeks flushed pink but managing an appreciative smile nonetheless. Sensing that Kimberly did not know what to say, I quickly intervened with, "So, Cassie, I hear you're a pretty good singer?"

Cassie shrugged. "Yeah; I mean, I'm okay, I guess," she said, but I knew better, having already heard from most of her teammates that she had an amazing voice. "Why do you ask? We're not going to start doing karaoke or anything, are we?"

Chuckling, I shook my head and said, "No, I don't think so. But I've heard Kim sing quite a few times, and she's great. Maybe you two could collaborate a little and see what you come up with."

"Yeah, I'd love to. Of course," said Cassie, grinning broadly. "What do you think, Kim?"

"Sounds great," answered Kimberly, flashing Cassie a smile.

And with that, Kimberly was included in the group. As she took a seat between Cassie and Karone, she looked at me and smiled, mouthing the words, "Thank you." I just gave her a subtle wink and turned around, and as I passed by Katherine, I muttered, "Backyard; now."

Walking away, I heard Katherine excuse herself a moment later and walk off in the direction opposite me, which I knew she had done to make it seem like she wasn't following me. Once outside, I only had to wait a minute or so before the glass door slid open and Katherine walked out, her hair a bit shorter but still as gorgeous as I remembered her being. She also looked slightly nervous, though, like she had been caught with her hand in the proverbial cookie jar.

"What's up?" she questioned hesitantly.

"I don't know, you tell me," I answered, sitting down in one of the porch chairs. "Between me and Kim, you've shot us more than a few dirty looks and I want to know what the problem is."

"Nothing, Tommy, there's no problem," she replied shortly. "It won't happen again. Can I go now?"

But before I could answer, she was already walking back inside. Sighing, I decided that I wasn't going to push the issue any further. In two days, Katherine would be going back to London and I wouldn't have to worry about it again. Still, it did leave something of a bitter taste in my mouth — that is, clearly being on bad terms with someone I genuinely cared for — and part of me was severely questioning why I was willing to let it go so easily.

I never let things go easily. Ask any of my friends, they'll tell you.

Reasoning to deal with it later — perhaps after the memorial service — I waited a few more minutes so that Katherine and I did not raise any suspicions, stood back up, and then returned to the party once more. Unlike the last time I had returned, though, the little clusters of Rangers had disappeared and a small semi-circle consisting of about half of the Rangers stood at the center of the living room, my furniture having all been pushed to the walls.

Disbelief, shock, amusement, fear, and extreme intrigue rattled my psyche as I walked towards a standing Jason, rubbing the back of my neck awkwardly. As I grew closer, I realized that everyone standing was also clapping, and once I reached the perimeter of the semi-circle, I saw what this was really about, which was more of a relief than anything.

Someone had apparently found the small collection of board games I had in the cabinet section of my entertainment area and thought _Twister_ would be a good idea. Shaking my head, I clasped Jason on the shoulder and said, "Get knocked out already, twinkle-toes?"

Jason chuckled and nodded. "Rocky's a cheating bastard. He tickled my stomach with his toes when he was moving his foot to another circle."

"Yeah, that sounds like something Rocky would do," I replied, looking around to see who else had been eliminated. I noticed that Karone was out, and that Katherine — who obviously had not participated — was ending the semi-circle on Karone's left. To Karone's right was Zhane, then Andros, Carlos, Adam, Jason, myself, and Billy.

It was then that I found Kimberly on the board, her back facing the ground with her hands and feet supporting her in the most awkward, spread-eagle bridge I had ever seen. Even for Kimberly, the most flexible person I knew, this seemed an impossible position. More than once I thought she was going to lose it when a new circle was called, but each and every time she found a way to pull it off, until finally it was just she and Zack left on the mat.

Then T.J. called out, "Right foot, Green!"

Almost instantly, Zack and Kimberly locked eyes. I could tell from the way their bodies were contorted across the mat exactly what they were thinking. Physically, each could only get to one of the green circles. It just so happened, that it was the same circle for both of them.

Then, in a blur that I barely caught, their individual right feet flew towards the circle. Kimberly's got there a moment earlier, though, Zack's foot bounced off it, and he lost his balance, collapsing onto his butt.

The second everyone realized what had happened, we burst into applause, congratulating both of them on a good game. But as a laughing Kimberly helped an equally amused Zack onto his feet and gave him a hug, I tucked her victory away in the back of my mind as something I could use against Zack in the future if he ever brought up the hair incident again.

No sooner had the game ended, though, than Kimberly was suggesting another. I was not surprised that nearly everyone agreed immediately. With only that little confidence boost from earlier she had turned into the life of the party, people just gravitating towards her like they had always done in the past.

And while I would have loved nothing more at that moment than to play _Guesstures_ with Kimberly and the rest of the Rangers, when I briefly locked eyes with Andros I knew I'd be sitting this one out, as well. At least for now, anyway; maybe I could join in later.

Andros mouthed the word "backyard," and I nodded discreetly, slipping away without saying anything. He came outside a couple minutes later, looking somewhat conflicted. "What's up, man?" I asked as he pushed the door shut behind him.

"Come with me," he replied, walking towards the lawn. "There's something I need to show you onboard the Megaship."

"Right now?" I said, but when Andros didn't stop I was forced to follow him. Thankfully, tonight was a particularly starry night, lighting the way for us. "Can't this wait until later?"

"Unfortunately, no," answered Andros, looking back to shake his head. We remained silent for a few minutes after that, but as we came within fifty or so feet of the Megaship, he stopped and turned around to face me. "There's a lot that I couldn't tell you that night I came here," he continued. "Most of the information that Zordon's message contained was actually meant for you, he just didn't want me dumping everything on you at once. Part of what he wanted me to tell you was supposed to wait until action was absolutely necessary —"

"Is it?"

Sighing, Andros looked me in the eyes and nodded.

How could this be happening already? I wondered silently. Zordon had not even been gone three weeks yet and something bad — the impression that I got from Andros, at least — was already taking place?

"What is it?" I questioned.

"Come on, I'll show you," said Andros, motioning for me to follow him.

Once we reached the Megaship, he pushed back his right sleeve and pressed a single button on his wrist Morpher that caused the boarding ramp to slide down once more. Unsure — and at least a bit fearful — of what I was about to see, I took in a very deep breath, let it out just as slowly, and then followed him up the ramp.

Guess I wasn't going to be playing _Guesstures _any time soon…


	6. The Long Road Ahead

_**Title: The Hexagon**_

_**Chapter Five — The Long Road Ahead**_

_**Original Posting Date: March 3, 2010**_

--

In silence, Andros led me through the corridors of the Megaship. Someone else may have been impressed with the blast doors, metal-lined interior, and such, but to me it was just another hallway. The control room, however, was a different story entirely.

I knew it was the control room before Andros even told me so, simply because it looked like the same control room in every television show and movie I had ever seen. There were various stations, each with different buttons and functions, and without even realizing it, Andros had gone off to one of the stations and was currently inputting a series of commands into the ship's computer systems.

"Over here," said Andros, once he had finished, leading me down the ramp to the front of the room. The moment I turned the corner to my right, though, I froze on the spot.

From a single hole in the wall was a blue holographic projection, showing images of three fully morphed Rangers that were stiff as boards, but slowly rotating in circles. Their suits were the Morphin' era uniforms originally worn by Jason, Zack, and Trini, though since the entire image was blue, the Rangers were only distinguishable by the ancient beast represented on their individual helmets.

"What is this?" I asked hesitantly.

"Almost five years ago, Zordon used the Sword of Power to transfer control of three Power Coins, from Jason Scott, Zack Taylor, and Trini Kwan, to Rocky DeSantos, Adam Park, and Aisha Campbell," announced Andros officially, as though I had not been there when this event had transpired. "Unbeknownst to him at the time, by transferring these powers, he created copies of the coins that, upon their creation, immediately went into a sort of suspended animation, hence why no one knew about them until it was too late. Zordon only found out about them due to a slip of the tongue from Elgar, who had apparently overheard Dark Specter talking to the Alliance about finding the 'lost Power Coins.' The only reason _I_ found out about the coins was because, in the video he left, Zordon told me to ask my sister about them. Fortunately, she remembered enough about what had happened when she was Astronema to give them a good place to start."

"Wait, 'them?'" I questioned, eyeing Andros suspiciously. "Who is 'them,' exactly?"

"Jason, Zack, and Trini," answered Andros casually.

"Huh?" I replied blankly. "Andros, what the hell are you talking about, man?"

"I'm talking about the coins, Tommy," he said. "I spoke with Karone and she said that, while they were able to locate the coins, no one in the Alliance was ever able to retrieve them. Apparently there's some kind of barrier around them, and it was Zordon's theory that the coins could only be retrieved by those they belonged to."

Shaking my head, I said, "I still don't get it, man. If Jason, Zack, and Trini are the only ones who can recover these coins then why can't they just stay in this suspended animation, or whatever it is? Wouldn't they be safer there anyway, where only three people in the entire universe can have access to them?"

"In theory, yes," said Andros, nodding. "Unfortunately, theory doesn't rule over fact." That said, he looked up at the ceiling and called out, "DECA, next image."

No sooner had the words come out of his mouth than three new Rangers replaced the others, only not any Rangers that I had been expecting. With no individual images displayed on their helmets, I could only assume that these were Jason, Zack, and Trini's doppelganger members on Lord Zedd's team of…

"The Dark Rangers?" I asked, now thoroughly confused, "What do they have to do with any of this? The spell on them was broken and they were all returned to humans once I smashed the Green Crystal."

"Yes, they were," said Andros, nodding once more, "The energy used to create them, though, was not. When you destroyed the crystal, Lord Zedd was able to recover most of that energy and sealed it in another dimension. What his plans were, no one knows for sure, but he probably intended to resurrect his Dark Rangers at some point and just never got around to it, what with Rita drugging and marrying him a few months later."

"So what's the problem if this energy is sealed in another dimension?"

"Well, did you ever feel like Lord Zedd kind of went, I don't know…_soft_ after he married Rita, like his head just wasn't in it anymore?"

Being a kid and in the moment, I had never really thought of it, but now that I could look back on those times with fresh eyes, it did seem like Andros had a point. "Yeah, you know, now that you mention it, he did kinda go soft there for a while. What do Zedd's methods of attacking have to with anything, though?"

Andros sighed. "DECA, next image," he said loudly, and at once the Dark Rangers were replaced by a creature I had never seen before, yet struck an oddly familiar place in my memory.

Male or female, I did not know, but it was certainly the ugliest being I had ever seen before. Six and a half feet tall with red skin; orange horns protruding from the side of its bald head; black and silver armor; half the face of a skeleton and the other half covered by a metal mask with a slotted grill where the mouth should have been…suddenly I felt my heart drop straight into the pit of my stomach.

"No," I breathed, shaking my head. "It — it can't be. Th-they had a _fucking_ _kid_?" I exclaimed. Rarely did I ever drop the F-bomb, but this, at least in my opinion, was one of those rare situations where using it was not only acceptable, but highly appropriate as well.

"His name is Thrax," said Andros, looking just as displeased as I was. "According to stories Karone heard as Astronema, Zedd nearly lost it when he found out Rita was pregnant. He refused to acknowledge it and forbade her from speaking of it to anyone. Considering she wore that huge cloak, it wasn't hard for her to hide it from her minions, but then the baby came, Zedd saw that it looked mostly like him, and fell in love with it immediately, but he still kept it hidden from the minions. As time wore on, he became more devoted to the baby and less interested in fighting you. Oh, sure, Rita would snap him back long enough to send down a group of Putties, haphazardly slap together a monster, make it big, and watch it get defeated, but Zedd really didn't care anymore.

"Unfortunately for him, Rita _did_ care. Zedd had usurped her position when she had failed to defeat you guys, and now he was acting like you didn't even matter. She was furious and, one night when Zedd was in his chamber, she took Thrax and left him with her mother, Mistress Vile. When she came back, she placed a memory spell on Zedd that erased every single memory he had of Thrax, pretended like he never existed, and that was that."

"So what happened to Thrax?" I questioned. "And how did he end up this big in, like, four or five years? That's not even humanly possible…"

Andros laughed heartily at that. "He's not a human, Tommy."

"Oh," I murmured, nodding slowly. "Right. So what happened to him? Shouldn't Zordon's sacrifice have done the same thing to him that it did to everyone else that was evil?"

"Again, in theory, yes," said Andros, shaking his head. "But it didn't, and without Zordon here to ask, there's no way to say for certain why that didn't happen. I can only speculate on this, but I think the reason Thrax was not affected was because he had yet to become a truly evil being at that time."

"And that changed in less than three weeks?" I asked, dumbfounded.

"Try to think about it from his point of view, Tommy; how drastically do you think your world would change if you woke up tomorrow morning and everything you had ever known and loved was completely gone?" said Andros.

I doubted that I would turn into an evil villain hell bent on destroying and/or conquering as many planets as possible, but I could also understand the logic Andros was trying to present. "Yeah, I guess I can see that," I said, shrugging. "So let me guess, Thrax is pissed that Zordon essentially killed his entire family, and now he wants revenge?"

Chuckling, Andros nodded and said, "Yeah, something like that. Follow me back up here," he continued, pointing towards the ramp, "There's one more thing I need to show you."

And so I did, following Andros up the ramp and all the way to the farthest station on the upper level of the room, where a single flat screen monitor pointed towards the ceiling alongside a ten-key pad adorned with foreign symbols instead of numbers. Andros then pressed a few of the buttons and an image of Thrax's face immediately appeared on the screen.

"Watch this," he murmured, pressing one last button.

This one caused Thrax to growl loudly, at which point I realized that it was not a picture, but a video recording. Then the image panned back, showing him seated in a dark room, on a throne-like chair and holding a long silver staff, both objects looking quite like the items his father had once used.

"Hello, Power Rangers. I am Thrax, son of Lord Zedd and Rita Repulsa!" he announced, slamming the pointed butt of his staff into the ground. "Your leader, Zordon, killed my entire family, and for that, you will all be destroyed! You see, Rangers, my parents did not leave me completely, no; everything they had ever done was documented for me so that I could carry on in their place should something happen to them. You will remember, of course, the Dark Rangers my father used unsuccessfully against you some time ago…"

At this point, Thrax dipped his hand into the dark space between his leg and the arm of the chair, resurfacing a few seconds later with five thin vials, each containing a different colored substance — red, black, blue, pink, and yellow — that looked just like sand. Even before he had said what they were, I knew.

"Yes, you see what I have here?" continued Thrax, laughing eerily. "It is the very energy my father used to create those Dark Rangers, the very energy that _I _will use to _re _-create them and destroy you all! Not to mention the pain I will inflict on you once I find the lost Power Coins…"

"No one ever said he was smart, telling us his plan like that," muttered Andros with a laugh, shaking his head as he pressed another button, this one causing the image to freeze. He then looked at me and continued, "The rest is just more of the usual, how he's so powerful that he's going to destroy us all and how we're fools that are going to pay for our mistakes…blah, blah, you know how it goes."

"Yeah," I said, chuckling. "I mean, I don't really see how the Dark Rangers pose an actual threat, though. We beat them once, and now we have way more good Rangers who can fight."

"I know," replied Andros, nodding. "It's not the Dark Rangers that I'm worried about. It's the Power Coins; Thrax is obviously going after them. I know I said that, in theory, Jason, Zack, and Trini should be the only ones who can access them, and I don't know how he's doing it, but Karone told me the location of the dimensional barrier protecting the coins, I've been monitoring it constantly, and it's slowly starting to break. I don't doubt that we can handle the Dark Rangers alone, but there's no telling what could happen if he gets his hands on not one, but _three_ Power Coins. That's why Jason, Zack, and Trini have to get them first…before Thrax does. If he uses them to power up the Dark Rangers even further, well — they may be unstoppable…"

"I —" I started, but I fell silent almost instantly. I had to let everything I had just heard sink in for a few moments before I tried to formulate coherent thoughts. Finally, after nearly two minutes, I looked at Andros and said, "How much time do we have before Thrax breaks through this dimensional barrier?"

"I can't say for certain, Tommy," answered Andros, shaking his head. "My best guess is a week, maybe two if we're lucky. But there's always a chance that he figures out a way to speed the process up even more, too, which is why we need to act sooner, rather than later."

"Yeah," I murmured, nodding. "We can both talk to them about it after the memorial service tomorrow. If they're agreeable, you can move forward and explain to them whatever it is that needs to be done to recover the coins, but I don't want to spring this on them now when everyone's here trying to have a good time."

"Of course," said Andros, nodding as well. "Fortunately, there is some good news as well."

"Oh yeah?" I replied, wondering how in the world there could actually be good news in a situation like this. "What's that?"

Pressing two more buttons on the keypad, a new image appeared to replace Thrax, this one of a rotating planet in space that looked quite a bit like Earth, only with the amounts of green and blue inverted so that the planet was primarily green, with white gas surrounding it that was clearly its atmosphere.

"Mirinoi," he announced, and with one last button pressed, the screen began zooming in. First the planet just got closer, then all I could see was the white of the clouds; moments later, I was looking down at a massive expanse of forest that was quickly growing closer. Once the image reached ground level, it began moving through the trees, taking a series of sharp turns until it finally stopped on a large boulder, in which five shimmering swords were imbedded. "The Quasar Sabers," Andros explained. "According to Alpha, Zordon came across them shortly after his return to Eltar and planted them on Mirinoi, knowing that no one would ever look for them on an un-colonized planet like that."

"What do they do?" I questioned curiously.

"I'll give you one guess," said Andros, smirking knowingly.

"No way," I muttered. "Ranger powers?"

"Yes," said Andros, nodding. "They aren't meant for any of us — Alpha made that much perfectly clear — but he did say that it wouldn't be very long before the rightful owners of the Quasar Sabers came to claim them."

"Which also means it can't be long before there's a _need_ for them!" I replied, throwing up my hands. "Andros, this isn't good news, it's terrible news. It means there's going to be _another_ threat soon."

"Yeah, but not on Earth, Tommy," he said. "Besides, another threat means at least five new Rangers, with at least ten or fifteen more here who can back them up if something goes wrong. I know you've been doing this a long time, Tommy, but trust me, I've been doing it a lot longer, and dealing with one individual threat to potentially earn five more allies is definitely worth it. Believe me, this is very good news."

I really didn't understand his logic, but I didn't feel like arguing any more either. Really, I just wanted to get back to Kimberly and the party, so I just shrugged and said, "I'll take your word for it. Is there anything else?"

"No," said Andros, shaking his head. "That's it for now."

Ten minutes later, I was severely wishing that he had had something else to say.

When we walked back into the house, the others were still engaged in their games of _Guesstures_, and Rocky was currently the one doing the acting. As I approached Kimberly, who was seated on the edge of the couch next to Aisha, I watched Rocky connect his fists, cock them back over his head, swing them down towards the ground, and immediately look towards the ceiling in disgust. Then, as I took a seat on the arm of the couch next to Kimberly, Rocky shook his head angrily, walked around in a small circle, dropped to his knees, and repeated the swinging motion all over again, this time with a victorious expression on his face as he looked upwards.

While everyone else burst out laughing, I just looked at Rocky and shook my head. "You're an asshole, you know that?" I said, chuckling despite myself. "What word did you get anyway?"

"No word. We stopped playing _Guesstures_,like, ten minutes ago," Rocky replied between laughs, pointing at me. "I just heard you coming in and wanted to make fun of you! Oh man, you lost at High Striker…to a girl; you suck out loud, dude."

And with that, almost everyone began to laugh at my expense. Much to my surprise, though, Kimberly did not. Instead, her hand found the small of my back in silence and I shifted my attention to her to find that she was beaming up at me. Then she held up one finger and curled it inward, beckoning me towards her.

"Come here with that sexy hair," she murmured with a wink.

Smirking, I leaned down and gave her the kiss I knew she wanted which, of course, with my luck being what it was, caused almost everyone who had seen it to burst into applause. Having all heard the hair-story by now, those who I had served with and who knew my detailed history with Kimberly all seemed to have their own suspicions about she and I, but neither one of us had really done anything to confirm or deny it in front of them until right then and there.

"Alright, alright, that's enough!" I responded, waving them off while laughing nonetheless.

This did little to quell them, though. In fact, instead of stopping, they did the farthest thing from it possible. They began chanting for an encore. And while Katherine wasn't totally into it, she didn't look like she hated us, either. Maybe she really was over it already…

Looking down at Kimberly, we shared a look that expressed the same general idea; we both knew that we were much better off just giving in to them than trying to fight back. Winking, I took her hands, lifted her onto her feet, took her seat on the couch, and then pulled her down onto my lap, holding her around the waist as she took my face in her hands and kissed me. The kiss was filled with passion, like it was just she and I alone, without the presence of sixteen other people watching us.

And I loved every long, drawn out second of it.

When we finally broke apart we were both breathless and clinging to each other like our lives depended on it, blissfully unaware that the others had long ago given up on us. In fact, if it wasn't for Rocky bellowing at us — "You guys are freaking gross!" — I would not have even noticed the difference.

With Kimberly secured on my lap, her arms looped around my neck, I looked over at Rocky and shot back, "You're just jealous 'cause you don't have what I have!"

"Yeah, well —" sputtered Rocky, seemingly stumped, "Well, you got beat by a girl, so there!"

To my delighted surprise, no one even chuckled this time. Kimberly, however, adjusted her position on my lap to face Rocky, flashed him her biggest grin and, in the sweetest tone of voice imaginable, said, "Hey, Rocko, you keep flapping those big gums of yours and you're going to be next. But this one won't be in some stupid carnival game, if you catch my drift."

Rocky seemed to ponder that for a moment, then realization crossed over his face as his lips formed into a wide O. "Okay, I gotcha," said Rocky quickly, nodding his head furiously.

"Good," said Kimberly, deciding to leave Rocky alone from there since Adam and Zack were rushing towards him, looking ready to razz him badly. With that, she brought her head back around to me, scanning the VCR clock along the way. "Wow," she murmured, covering a small yawn with her hand, "It's already after midnight."

"Tired?" I asked, kissing her bare shoulder.

"A little…but not enough to fall asleep on you," she answered with a wink.

Grinning, I replied, "Is that your way of saying I'm going to be a happy man tonight?"

Smirking, she gave me a quick kiss and then said, "Do you even have to ask?"

Unfortunately for me, I still had a house full of people and no idea when any of them were going to leave. It was then, as I looked around at everybody, that I realized someone was actually already gone…

Katherine.

Sighing, I lifted Kimberly up, rose to my feet, and returned her to the couch. "I'll be right back. Don't go anywhere," I told her, walking off to search the house. The kitchen, den, family room, both of the bathrooms, the garage, and all three bathrooms were empty though.

I won't lie, a very large part of me was genuinely concerned about Katherine. I still cared for her on a deeply personal level, and I hated knowing that it was likely something I had done that had pushed her into leaving.

On my way back to the living room, the first group I ran into was Jason, T.J., and Cassie, so I decided to stop. "Sorry to interrupt, guys," I said, placing one hand on Jason's shoulder and the other one on Cassie's, "But have any of you seen Kat around here recently?"

"No, we were just talking about that," Cassie replied, shaking her head. "She disappeared right after you and Kim started that really, _really_ long kiss. Jason and I have both been asking around, and no one's seen her."

"Alright," I said, nodding, "Thanks, guys. I'm gonna have a look around outside and see if I can find her. Jason, you want to come with?"

As I asked the question, I hoped he caught the briefest of looks that I sent his way. Whether he did or did not, I still do not know, but he agreed to come with me regardless, and that was all I really cared about. We made it all the way to the front door before I stopped, looked back at Jason, and said, "Hold on one sec."

I then jogged back into the living room and found Kimberly on the couch exactly where I left her, talking animatedly with Trini and Aisha. Walking over to her, I squatted down next to her and put my hand on her knee to get her attention. "Back already?" she asked with a smile.

"Only for a second," I answered with a smile of my own. "I'm just going to be honest with you here, okay? Kat disappeared right after you and I started kissing, no one knows where she went, and I'm really worried about her, so Jason and I are going to go outside and see if we can find her, or if she's even still here at all."

Looking directly into her eyes, I prayed she would understand that my concern for Katherine's whereabouts, while certainly strong and deep seeded, did not stem from anything that even remotely resembled romantic feelings. In my eyes, that particular ship had set sail some time ago and, after just a week together, my heart was fully committed to Kimberly once more; truthfully, though, a big part of it always had been. Now she just had all of it again.

"Okay," she murmured, nodding and smiling. "Just be careful, okay?"

"I will. Thank you for understanding," I replied, taking her hands and kissing her softly. "I love you, Beautiful."

I was gone before she could say anything back.

Though my words were truthful and from the heart, I did not want her to feel any sort of pressure to repeat them. Still, as I walked away from the trio of old friends, I could not help but smile at the familiar chorus of high-pitched giggles now coming from behind me.

Before meeting back up with Jason, I made a quick pit stop in the garage and scooped up two flashlights. Double checking both to make sure they were operational, I left the garage and headed back inside.

"Alright, let's go," I said to Jason, handing him one of the flashlights once I had rejoined him at the front door.

"Let's do it," he replied, nodding.

Once outside, I took one look at the ten or so cars parked in front of my house, turned to Jason, and said, "Any idea what she was driving?"

"No," said Jason, shaking his head, "But considering she flew here from London, I'm willing to bet she probably drove one of her parent's cars. Seeing as how you were her boyfriend for almost two years…"

"Touché," I muttered with a chuckle. I then did another scan of the vehicles, saw the silver 4Runner that I knew to be her fathers, turned to Jason and, while pointing towards the vehicle in question, said, "She's still here."

"Do you want to split up and look for her?"

"No," I said, shaking my head. With Jason and I alone, the opportunity to kill two birds with one stone had fallen at my feet and, with no idea when I would get this chance again, I was not about to pass it up. "There are a couple of things that I need to talk to you about while we look for her. Walk with me."

"Alright," he agreed, nodding. Walking down the driveway, beyond all the cars to the dirt road, Jason stopped and looked at me. "Which way?"

Looking left and right repeatedly, I could not make up my mind. I wanted to find Katherine as quickly as possible, and the surest way to do that was for us to go in different directions. At the same time, though, I really, _really_ needed to talk to Jason. Sighing, I reached up to run my hand through my hair, but stopped when my sleeve came up just enough for me to see the silver band around my wrist that was my communicator.

"Wait," I breathed, my eyes immediately finding Jason. "Tell me you still keep your communicator with you."

Smirking, Jason held up his arm to show me a regular black wristwatch. But then he grabbed the face of the watch, popped it off like it was meant to be easily removed, and showed me the green-and-silver face of his communicator. "You wanna split up and talk this way?" he asked.

I just nodded. "You go left and start heading towards town. Knowing Kat, she probably went that way just out of familiarity, but I've gone a lot deeper into these woods than you and it's really easy to get lost, so I'm going to go right just to be on the safe side."

"Sounds good," said Jason. Holding up his wrist, he tapped his communicator and added, "Let me know as soon as you find something, okay?"

"Yeah, same to you," I replied, nodding once more, and with that, we went our separate ways.

Walking into the woods, pausing every fifty or so feet to scan inside the trees and the area up ahead with the flashlight, I did this for about five minutes and then stopped. Putting the butt end of the flashlight into my mouth, I pointed it at my wrist and went to work on finding Jason's communicator frequency. Ten seconds later, I removed the flashlight from between my teeth, brought my wrist to my lips and, as I started walking again, said, "You there?"

"Yeah, no sign of her yet, though," he replied almost instantly.

"Yeah, same here," I muttered. At the sight of movement up ahead, I stopped and swung the flashlight in that direction, but it was already gone, and much too fast to have been a human. Deciding it must have just been a squirrel or something, I pressed on.

"So, what's up?" asked Jason. "What did you need to talk to me about?"

"Oh, uh, yeah —" I stammered, letting out an awkward chuckle. "The communicator idea seemed like a good one at the time, but now that I think about it, the things I need to talk to you about really need to be said to your face, bro."

There was silence for nearly a full minute before Jason finally said, "Sorry, I thought I saw something, but I was wrong. Anyway, if you would rather talk face to face, that's fine with me, but just answer me this. Is it something that I did?"

"I guess in a roundabout way, yeah, part of it is," I answered. "It's nothing bad, though, if that's what you're wondering. At least, I don't think so anyway."

Jason laughed. "Alright then," he replied. "Well, if we're not going to talk about whatever it is that you wanted to talk about, then you can at least tell me about you and Kim. What's up with you guys?"

Even after all these years of friendship, I still did not understand how Jason could let go of one thing and then move onto something else so easily. Had our roles been reversed, I probably would have pushed Jason to tell me what was up — and more than likely make him give in — long before we had reconvened in person.

Still, his new topic of choice was not one I wanted to discuss in too much detail. "I don't know, man. It's complicated," I answered, which was very much a true statement. "I mean, it's only been a week —"

"No, it hasn't," Jason interrupted.

"What do you mean?" I questioned, stopping to scan left and right once more.

"It hasn't been a week, Tommy, and you're fooling yourself if you think it has," he said. "In a situation like this, you have to look at it like it's been almost six years, with a two and a half year break in between."

I chuckled at that. "Relationship advice from a guy whose longest relationship was three months? Hmm…" I said teasingly.

"No, asshole," Jason replied, "My longest relationship is two years, with a six month break."

Forget chuckling, I was full on laughing at this point. "How do you figure, bro? I mean, I'm really not trying to be a jerk here, but Emily was your only girlfriend, and that ended when you decided to go to NYU."

"Oh, that's right," he said with an audible air of sarcasm, "Because _you_ know _my_ life better than_ I_ do. How could I have let _that one_ slip my mind?"

"Alright, alright, fair enough," I said. "So who's the un-lu — I mean, _lucky_, girl?"

"Emily," he answered simply.

Caught completely off guard, I froze on the spot and said nothing. If not for the sounds of some forest critter scampering to my left a few seconds later, there's no telling how long I would have stayed like that. That's how genuinely surprised I was.

"You're not joking, are you?" I finally found the wherewithal to ask as I forced my legs to continue down the path.

"Nope, I'm sure not," said Jason. "But I'm not telling you shit about me and Emily unless you're going to talk to me about Kim. You and I have been best friends for almost six years, bro. Even though we give each other a lot of shit, you know that whatever gets said in a conversation like this lives and dies with us."

"Yeah," I murmured, peering into the trees once more. "Alright, fine. You tell me about you and Emily, and then I'll tell you about me and Kim, fair?"

"Fine with me," said Jason, with a laugh. "Emily and I are pretty simple, really. I mean, yeah, when she stayed in California after graduation and I moved to New York, we agreed to just be friends, and I was totally cool with that. I dated here and there over the next few months, but I never found anyone I really connected with."

I definitely knew that feeling. I didn't mention it earlier, since I don't really consider it an important part of my life — nor one that I'm particularly proud of — but I went on my fair share of dates between Katherine and Kimberly, as well; obviously, none of them developed into anything serious and that's all I want to say on that.

"So anyway," Jason continued. "It was, like, five months or so after I'd moved — so, October of last year — and I was getting a bagel at this place on 21st that I stop into most mornings on my way to school. As I started moving towards the front of the line, I saw this blonde girl with her face buried in a textbook. At first glance, I thought it was her right away, but I wasn't positive, and I _really_ didn't want to say something and have it turn out that I was wrong. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I would rather find out that it wasn't her then not say anything and risk that it actually was.

"So I paid for my bagel, and as I was walking out, I stopped next to her, put my hand on the table, and said, "Excuse me." The second she looked up, I knew it was her. We were both pretty surprised, to say the least, but we were definitely happy to see each other, as well. Turns out, she had just gotten accepted into NYU's film school and was getting ready for the next semester. When I asked why she didn't call me to tell me she was moving to New York, she was pretty quick to remind me that I had never called or written to her with my new number."

"Hold on," I said, stopping to scan up ahead. I thought I had heard what sounded like something — or someone — moaning very softly, but after a hundred more feet of walking, I hadn't found anything. "Never mind; false alarm," I continued. Then I laughed. "Slick move forgetting the number, by the way."

Jason chuckled. "Yeah, definitely not one of my brightest moves. Anyway…I was in a hurry to get to class that morning, but I made sure I left her with my number this time around. She called a couple days later on Friday night, we went out for dinner and caught up, and then we just started hanging out more and more from there. For about a month, nothing even happened; we were pretty much just friends, like how we had left it back home. We didn't even talk about anything more.

"But then I was walking her home one night after we had gone to see a movie, and it started to get pretty cold; she'd forgotten to bring a coat, so I gave her my jacket. We get to the door of her apartment building, we're saying our good-byes, and she reaches up to take off my jacket. I go to help her with it, and my hand ends up on top of hers. I don't know what changed all of a sudden, but our eyes locked and I just — I _knew_, bro. It was like, in that brief moment in time, I had found that connection I'd been looking for. Before I even knew what was happening, we were kissing each other, and the rest is history."

"Wow," I breathed, giving myself a few silent moments to let his story fully sink in before continuing, "And you never called to tell me about this, why?"

Jason laughed. "Honestly, bro, I meant to. There were so many times where I was like, "I gotta call Tommy and tell him," but I knew we weren't just going to have some five minute conversation about it, either; and between school, work, and Emily, I just…I dunno, man, I lost track of time, I guess."

"Yeah, I know the feeling," I replied. "How long have we been out here, man?"

A momentary lapse of silence fell, which I assumed meant he was checking his watch, and then he said, "Almost half an hour. I can see a little bit of light up ahead; I think I'm getting pretty close to town. If we don't find her before then, I'm gonna keep going and see if there are any open stores she might be in."

"Sounds good, bro."

"Yeah," said Jason. "So tell me about you and Kim now. Or did you think I'd forget?"

"No, I knew you wouldn't forget," I answered, shaking my head. "But I was kind of hoping we'd have found Kat by now, at which point I'd be yelling at her for running off, and thus wouldn't have to tell you about Kim."

"Ah," said Jason, laughing. "Well, then, lucky for me we haven't found her yet."

"You do realize what a terrible thing that is to say, right?"

"Yeah," he answered nonchalantly. "But I know Kat and she can handle herself. Honestly, I think if she wanted to be found, we would have already found her by now."

This was a thought that I had yet to ponder. Maybe Katherine really just wanted to be alone and had found a really good hiding spot. Surrounded by forest for miles on end, there were definitely a ton of places to hide, and it was certainly a possibility that one of us had passed her up long ago. But while Jason said that he knew Katherine, the truth was that none of the Rangers, save for maybe Tanya, knew her better than I did. And while he was absolutely right in saying that she could handle herself, she was also not dumb enough to just go wandering off the trail in a forest she knew nothing about.

"Let's just keep going," I said.

"While you tell me about you and Kim," added Jason.

"Right," I muttered through gritted teeth. "While I tell you about me and Kim. What do you want to know, exactly?"

"I don't know, man," replied Jason, sounding slightly exasperated. "I want details. Tell me what's been happening since she got here."

Sighing, I took a deep breath and said, "Alright, man…so last Friday, you know, I was calling all the other Rangers to firm up the plans for this weekend. Like I'd told you before then, Kim hung up on me when I called to tell her about Zordon and, knowing Kim the way I do, I knew that she would call me herself if she wanted to talk. But I still thought I should call her anyway that night, just to let her know what was happening."

From there, I spent the next ten or fifteen minutes telling Jason about almost everything that had happened between me and Kimberly over the course of the last week. Almost everything; and I'm sure you can imagine the parts I left out. Jason had not gone into explicit detail with his and Emily's relationship, so I was not going to either.

"So what are you going to do when she goes back to Florida?" he asked once I had finished.

This particular question, of course, was the whole reason for me _not_ wanting to tell him about me and Kimberly. "I honestly have no idea, bro," I answered. "We were just starting to talk about it when you and Zack showed up. Thanks for that, by the way. Next time I say eight, make sure it's eight and not seven-forty."

"Ouch," muttered Jason. "Sorry about that, T. Zack and I were just trying to surprise you. You know if I had known about you and Kim —"

"Yeah, yeah," I laughed. "It's all good, man. We'll get a chance to talk before she leaves on Sunday." A few seconds later, I continued, "Hold on a sec, Jase. I'm gonna contact Andros and see if Kat's come back since we left."

"Which you should have done twenty —"

I ended the transmission with Jason before he could finish, grinning to myself as I did so. Then I quickly switched over to Andros' frequency and sent him a page. As usual, it took but moments for him to reply, "This is Andros."

"Andros, Tommy," I said shortly. "Kat shown back up yet?"

"No, unfortunately not," he said. "Everyone here is pretty worried, to tell you the truth. Even Kim seems upset. Ashley talked to Trini about it, thinking Kim was just worried about you, but Ashley told me she's just as concerned about Kat as she is about you. Oh, and Tanya wanted to call the police, but a couple of us managed to talk her into waiting for you and Jason before doing anything. Although, judging by the way she and Adam look to be arguing in the kitchen, I'm not sure how long we'll be able to hold her off."

"Alright, just let me know if she shows up and do your best to keep Tanya at bay for a little bit longer," I replied. "Jason and I split up, and the trail I'm on ends pretty soon, so if I don't find her before then I'm going to turn back."

"Okay, sounds good. Andros out."

Letting my communicator hand fall to my side, I placed my other forearm against a nearby tree and began resting my forehead atop it. "Dammit, Katherine," I muttered to myself. "WHERE ARE YOU!?" I roared, slamming my fist into the tree in a sudden burst of anger.

My hand exploded with intense pain, but I soon forgot it when I heard a quiet voice murmur, "I'm right here, Tommy." Whipping around, I shone the flashlight on the other side of the path and found Katherine standing right there, holding her arms up to cover her face from the light. "Do you think you can lower the light a bit?"

"Oh, right. Sorry," I said, moving the beam to her torso as I walked towards her. All niceties went away at that point, though, as I shouted, "What the hell are you doing out here, Kat? Jason and I have been running around for nearly an hour looking for you! Everyone at the house is worried sick! Tanya about called the fucking police! What were you thinking?"

"I — I wasn't," stammered Katherine.

"No, you weren't, were you?" I replied angrily. "Jesus, Katherine, I mean —"

"Please, Tommy, just let me explain," she said over the top of me.

Still fuming, I forced myself to hold my tongue as I waited for my breathing to steady, at which point I folded my arms across my chest and, wearing an enraged expression even though I knew she couldn't see it, muttered, "Go on then."

"Thank you," she replied softly. "I just — I don't know where to start, Tommy. The first few weeks after we broke up were really hard for me, but when neither of us made any effort to contact each other afterwards, I began convincing myself that I didn't need you and, over time, I stopped thinking about you altogether, save for an occasional memory when something random struck a chord."

Oddly enough, this was exactly how I had felt too.

"But then Jason called to tell me about Zordon, and I knew that you and I would have to face each other sooner, rather than later," she continued. "Honestly, the whole plane ride here I was a nervous wreck, wondering what it was going to be like being around you again. Would we be friendly? Would you hate me for ending it? Did you still have feelings for me? Or had you found another girlfriend? I just didn't know, but I figured I could deal with whatever scenario I found myself in. Unfortunately for me, the scenario I found myself in was one I hadn't even thought about for a second.

"When I first saw you with Kim, I felt so many different emotions at once. Surprise, of course; anger; hurt; jealousy…"

"Jealousy?" I interrupted, my anger having died down considerably.

Katherine sighed. "Yes, jealousy," she said softly. "Despite me being the one to end things between us, in my heart I never really got over you, Tommy. I just — I didn't think it would work long distance. Truthfully, I was afraid that I would end up doing the same thing to you that Kim did, or vice-versa, and after seeing what that did to you the first time, I knew I could never live with myself if I put you through that kind of pain again."

"So, what, you came here thinking we could rekindle the old flame?" I questioned.

"I don't know what I was thinking, Tommy," she replied. "I mean, yes, I guess a part of me was hoping that would be a possibility, but like I said, I was prepared for other alternatives." Then, in a ghost of a whisper, she added, "I certainly wasn't prepared to see you two together, though."

"You've been pretty mean to both of us tonight, you know," I supplied.

"I know," Katherine murmured. "That's why I came out here. I needed to calm down and assess things in my head, and the fresh air has always helped me do that. I didn't expect to wander this far, I just became lost in my thoughts, and before I knew it, I was here. I feel like a horrible person for the way I acted. Kim has never been anything but sweet to me. She trusted me with her place on the team, with her friends, with you…she didn't deserve the way I treated her. Neither did you, for that matter, and for that, I truly am sorry, Tommy, from the bottom of my heart, I am. Like I said, though, I just didn't know how to react to what I was seeing. Not that that's any excuse, but —"

"I want you to know that I'm in love with Kim, Kat," I interjected softly. Taking a step towards her, leaving just a few inches between us, I touched her elbow and continued, "But I also care very deeply for you. When Kim broke my heart, you were there, always so patient in helping me put the pieces back together. For that alone, I will always, _always_ love you. But I can't love you the way you deserve to be loved, Katherine, not the way you want me to, anyway."

"I know that now," she said quietly. "The second that I saw you and Kim together, I knew the truth. I guess that's part of why I acted out, realizing that it was really over for good between us."

"I still want you in my life, though, Kat," I replied. "You are truly an amazing woman, and I just want you to know, if you ever need a friend to talk to, a shoulder to cry on, or anything like that…I will always be here for you. I mean that."

After a few seconds of silence, Katherine gave a loud sniffle and said, "Thank you, Tommy. I really appreciate that. And I hope you know, you can always rely on the same from me. I'm always here if you need me."

"I know," I murmured, brushing a stray tear from her cheek that I somehow knew was there without being able to see it. "Come on, let's get you back to the house."

And with that, we started back the way we had come. Along the way, I made sure to let Andros and Jason know that I had found Katherine, which of course left everyone very much relieved. Though I had found Katherine long before Jason had reached town, I had not, unfortunately, remembered to contact him immediately, and by the time I got around to it, he had found his way into a twenty-four hour grocery store. Considering the last thing he said was something about buying a two-foot sandwich from the deli, I was pretty sure that he was going to be quite awhile in getting back to the house.

I, of course, conveniently failed to mention that I had spent a good deal of time talking to her — not to mention the fact that we were almost halfway back to the house — before I remembered to contact him. Fortunately for me, Katherine promised to keep this as our secret, on the grounds that I kept the other Rangers at bay and allowed her to speak with Kimberly in private as soon as we arrived.

Why would I object to that?

Once we had made it back some twenty minutes later, I directed Katherine around the side of the house and into the backyard. Upon reaching the porch swing, I stopped and motioned for her to have a seat. "I'll go talk to the others and then send Kim out, okay?"

Katherine nodded and took a seat. I turned to walk away at that point, but before I could move forward she had seized my wrist. Once I had turned around and returned my attention to her, she released her hold and quietly said, "Thank you, Tommy…for not totally ripping my head off, or hating me…for still wanting to be my friend." She then gave me a watery-eyed smile and added, "It means so much to me. And I'm so glad you're happy with Kim. You're a good person, and you deserve to be happy."

Smiling, I extended my hands towards Katherine. Hesitantly, she placed her hands in mine and allowed me to pull her back onto her feet, at which point I gave her a hug that I hoped reinforced how much she meant to me. "You're a good person, too, Kat," I murmured in our embrace. "You deserve the same happiness and, I promise you, one day you will find it. And when you do, it will be real, and special, and all yours."

"God, I hate how good of a talker you can be sometimes," she replied with something of a crying laugh. As I released my hold on her, she stepped back and started dabbing her eyes on the sleeves of her bubblegum pink sweatshirt. "Okay, Katherine, time to pull yourself together now."

"Do you want me to go get Kim?" I asked softly.

After returning to her seat on the swing, Katherine nodded and said, "Yes…and please tell everyone else how sorry I am for making them worry so much. I'd tell them myself, but I think they'll probably all have left by the time Kim and I are done talking."

"You got it," I said with a smile, turning around and heading back inside through the sliding glass door.

As I headed for the living room, Tanya was the first to see me and she did not hesitate in jumping out of her seat and running up to meet me. "Where is she, Tommy? Is she okay?" Tanya demanded anxiously.

"She's fine, Tanya," I answered calmly, looking over her shoulder to see the others all walking towards us. Holding up my hands, I took a step back from Tanya and, very clearly, announced, "Okay, guys, I know you've all been worried, and I understand that, but we all need some privacy from time to time, so I hope you can understand, as well as respect that when it comes to Kat. Physically, she's perfectly fine, so you don't have anything to worry about. She's asked me to apologize to all of you on her behalf for worrying everyone, but right now, she only wants to talk to one person."

"Who?" asked Tanya.

Finding her standing in between Zack and Cassie, taking a sip from her paper cup, I pointed at her and said, "Kim."

Cue comedic soda spewing all over the back of T.J.'s gray jacket.

"Oh my god, I'm so sorry, T.J.," Kimberly spouted. Just as quickly, though, she diverted her eyes my way and said, "But me? Why in the world would she want to talk to me, of all people?"

Shrugging my shoulders, I said, "I have no idea, Kim. I'm just playing the messenger at this point. She's out on the porch swing waiting for you if you want to talk to her, though."

Swallowing hard, Kimberly slowly looked around at everyone else before settling on me once more. "Um…okay," she managed, nodding.

Moving through the group, once she had made it close enough, I stopped her with a hand on the shoulder and murmured, "Give her a chance, Beautiful. She's really sorry."

Kimberly just nodded and continued on her way, at which point I returned my attention to the group and said, "Well, I don't know about you guys, but it's almost two o'clock in the morning and the plan was to meet at the outskirts around eleven…we can push it back an hour, but either way, I'm going to bed. You guys are more than welcome to stay and hang out a while longer, if you want, but please don't be later than noon tomorrow."

"You know," Andros spoke up, "I think it's probably best that we all be on our way for tonight. It's been a long one, and who knows what tomorrow will bring." We locked eyes for just a moment at that, but it was enough to leave me certain that his words held a deeper meaning. "The only problem is," he continued, before I could think on it much further, "the Megaship is in the backyard, and so are Kim and Kat."

"Right," I replied, nodding. "We'll deal with that in a second. What about the rest of you? Are you staying?" I questioned, looking around at those who had served with me.

Thankfully — for me, anyway — everyone else also seemed ready to call it a night. Well, Tanya didn't seem too thrilled about leaving without seeing Katherine, but Adam was able to talk her into it in the end.

"What about Jason, though?" asked Zack. "He rode with me from Angel Grove."

In the back of my head, I could not help but think that getting people to leave should not have been this difficult. Sighing, I pushed back my sleeve and revealed my communicator, which elicited a chorus of surprised murmurs from my former teammates as I went about finding Jason's frequency.

"They still work?" asked Rocky, seemingly in shock.

"Yep," I answered simply, nodding.

"How?" questioned Aisha.

"Yeah, shouldn't they have stopped working when the Power Chamber was destroyed?" Adam joined in.

"The communicators were not a creation of Zordon's," Billy suddenly interjected. "When I made them, they were designed to function independently from what was then the Command Center, that way if anything _did_ happen, we would still have a way to communicate with each other if we weren't together. So long as the necessary satellite remains in orbit, the communicators will continue to function."

"Yeah, what Billy said," I agreed with a nod. Then I sent a page to Jason and waited, not wanting to speak directly to him just in case he was somehow still in a public place.

Moments later, though, his voice came through, "Jason here."

"It's Tommy," I said. "How far out are you from the house?"

"I'm almost to the road back," he answered. "Why, what's up?"

"Well, everyone's pretty much heading out now. Why don't you wait at the end of the road and Zack can grab you on his way out?"

"Uh, alright…I guess that's fine."

"Cool, man," I replied. "We'll finish our talk tomorrow, alright?"

"Sounds good," said Jason.

With that, we said our goodbyes and ended the transmission. And now that that was out of the way, I was soon saying goodbyes with the other Rangers as well, until soon only the Space team remained. Instructing them to wait in the living room, I headed to the front of the house and peered through the window to make sure all the cars had departed. Satisfied, I returned to the living room and continued on into the backyard.

I'm sure the sound of the door opening alerted them, because neither was talking when I stuck my head outside. Both were seated in cross-legged positions on the porch swing, facing each other with their heads bowed low. It didn't take Sherlock Holmes to deduce that they had likely both been crying.

"Hey, I'm really sorry to interrupt," I called out softly, "But everyone else is gone except the Space team, and the Megaship's out there on the lawn. If you want, you can walk around the side of the house and I'll leave the front door unlocked. I'm gonna go to my room so you won't have to worry about me, either."

I could barely see Katherine raise her eyes to look at Kimberly — who I assumed was doing the same, though I could not tell with her back to me — and a few seconds later, Kimberly nodded and said, "That's fine. We'll head around now. Thanks."

"No problem," I replied, pulling my head back in and shutting the door. Turning around to face the Space Rangers and Karone, I said, "Just give them, like, two minutes and then you should be good, alright?"

With everyone in agreement, I exchanged goodbyes with the seven of them and then proceeded onto my room. Ten minutes later, after brushing my teeth, washing my face, and rinsing the gel from my hair, I was in bed with the lights off and SportsCenter playing quietly on the television atop my dresser.

You know that point you get to when you're trying to fall asleep? Where you're not quite there yet, but your body is so close that you know you're going to slip away into dreamland at any given moment? Yeah, that's where I was at when I heard my door creak open, followed by Kimberly sniffling loudly.

Consciously, I recognized these things as signs that she might want to talk, but my body was so exhausted — particularly from the search for Katherine — that I just couldn't do anything other than act like I was out cold. I thought I was in the clear when she slipped into the bathroom, but then she crawled into bed a few minutes later, facing me with her fingers running along my chest, and I knew that continuing to feign sleep would only delay the inevitable. Eventually, she would either push me awake, talk to me so loudly that no human could possibly sleep through it, or, even worse, both.

I had already experienced this four out of our seven nights together. Apparently, Kimberly had the tendency to experience very deep moments of thought that required her to talk them out with someone at the most inconvenient of times, usually right when I was on the verge of falling asleep or already there. I wasn't a huge fan of this, obviously, but I didn't really see the sense of making a big deal about it when our time together was so limited for now.

"Did Kat leave?" I asked, trying to make my tone sound as groggy as possible.

"Yeah," said Kimberly softly. "She said to tell you goodnight and that she'd see you tomorrow."

"How'd it go?" I murmured.

"You were right. She really was sorry," Kimberly replied softly. "And I understand why you care so much for her, Tommy. I only knew her for that short period of time, and so much of it was spent with her under an evil spell…but talking to her out there, it really makes sense now. She's a great girl, and I told her how thankful I was that she was there to help you after I had hurt you so badly."

Propping myself up with my elbow on my pillow and my head resting on the same hand, I gently took Kimberly's hand with my other one and brought it to my chest, holding it against my heart. Looking deep into her eyes, I smiled at her and said, "You broke it, she fixed it, and then I let you take it back. Sounds like flawed logic, doesn't it?"

"I promise you, you'll never have to worry about me breaking it again," she countered with a smile of her own. "As long as you'll let me have it, it's safe with me."

"I know," I said in a near whisper, sealing it with a kiss.

And I did.

Deep down, I knew, without a doubt, that my heart was safe with Kimberly.


	7. Remembering

_**Title: The Hexagon**_

_**Chapter Six — Remembering**_

_**Original Posting Date: March 8, 2010**_

_**A/N: To FantasyFreak4Life...Chapter 10's already done. Eat it.  
**_

--

Sleep, unfortunately, was not to be my friend on this particular night. Kimberly and I had stayed up chatting for almost another hour, after which she had fallen asleep with no problems at all. In fact, she had dozed off right in the middle of me answering one of her questions. I, on the other hand, woke up four different occasions throughout the next six hours, never staying asleep for more than ninety minutes continuously.

Finally, after waking up for what was either the fourth or fifth time, I looked at the clock-radio on my night stand, saw that it was seven-thirty, and decided that I had had enough. Climbing out of bed carefully so as not to disturb Kimberly, I rose to my feet, looked down at the bed, and saw that she was not even there.

With Katherine, I had become accustomed with being the early riser of the two and I had still not quite adjusted to being the opposite with Kimberly. The only thing I found odd on this particular morning was that her getting out of bed had not woken me; seeing as how I had never really fallen into a deep sleep the night before, I was somewhat surprised that I had not heard her.

Heading for the bathroom, I splashed some water on my face and brushed my teeth, then returned to the bedroom to put on a pair of pajama bottoms and a tee shirt, as well as strap my communicator on. Once I was dressed, I made my way towards the kitchen, but stopped about halfway there. Standing in the middle of the hallway, I began sniffing the air curiously.

Was that…breakfast?

Eagerly, I continued into the kitchen and nearly fell over with shock at the sight of Kimberly standing over the stove, managing four different pans at once. What was even more shocking, though, was that she looked completely in control, like she had been doing it for years.

With Kimberly still unaware of my presence, I quietly walked up behind her and wrapped my arms around her waist, holding her close to me. "Looks like someone learned a little bit more than she let on," I murmured in her ear, nibbling it a bit while inspecting my soon-to-be breakfast at the same time.

Pancakes, sausage, bacon, scrambled eggs and, upon further inspection, bread in the toaster waiting to be browned…yep, she had definitely figured it out.

Looking back at me with a smirk, Kimberly shrugged and said, "Looks like it."

Grinning, I released my hold on her and moved out of her way, leaning against the adjacent counter. "I'm impressed," I told her. "A guy could get used to this, you know."

"Well don't," said Kimberly, winking over her shoulder at me, "Which reminds me; there's, uh…there's something that I want to talk to you about after breakfast."

"Uh-oh," I replied laughingly. "Is this the big conversation?"

"No," she answered, shaking her head. "This is me telling you what I need to do and hoping you will support me like you've always done before."

I nodded. "If I can, you know that I will," I said seriously.

"I know," said Kimberly softly, letting out a barely audible sigh. "Come on and grab some plates for this stuff, Tommy. You know I can't reach them. Oh, and can you toast that bread too please?"

Chuckling, I reached to my left and pressed the bread down, then walked across the kitchen and retrieved a few plates from the upper cabinet, trying not to worry about what was to come as I carried them back to Kimberly and set them atop the counter next to where she was working. "As you commanded, my princess," I said, giving her a grinning bow.

"Thank you, slave," she replied, patting my head. "I think you'll do just fine."

"You really think so?" I asked, standing up straight as Kimberly nodded. "Oh man, this is awesome! I gotta call Jason and tell him!"

Rolling her eyes, Kimberly said, "Just shut up and carry these plates, alright?"

So I did, and soon we were seated and eating. Though I desperately wanted to know what it was that Kimberly needed to tell me, she had said that we would talk after breakfast, so I forced myself not to ask and instead focused on the upcoming memorial service.

Even now, I still did not know exactly what would be happening in the next few hours. I was planning on speaking, and I knew Jason wanted to say a few words as well, but that was really it. Part of me wanted to program my Zeo Zord for a flyover, but again, I knew that would lead to more questions than I was prepared to answer right now.

"So I was thinking," I began, swallowing the sausage I had been chewing, "I know its last minute, but how would you feel about maybe singing a song?"

Kimberly laughed. "You're joking, right?"

"No, I'm not," I replied, shaking my head. "You have an amazing voice, Beautiful, and I think a song would be really great."

"But what would I sing?" she questioned. "And besides, I don't even have my guitar."

"I know," I said. "But Jason's dad has one, and if I asked him to bring it, I'm sure he would. And as far as what you would sing…that's up to you. Personally, I don't really care because I know it'll be good regardless. Just sing whatever you feel is fitting. You've always been good at coming from the heart."

Kimberly smiled. "Alright, if you can get the guitar, I'll do it."

"Awesome!" I exclaimed, grinning as I raised my wrist and sent Jason a communicator page.

Thirty seconds later we heard, "Jason here."

"Hey, bro, what's going on?" I asked.

"Not much, just got done eating breakfast with my parents," he replied. "What about you?"

"I'm eating with Kim right now," I answered. "Listen, do you think that you could bring your dad's acoustic guitar? I was just talking to Kim about it, and she said she would sing at the service if she had a guitar."

"Uh, yeah, that shouldn't be a problem," he said. "My folks are leaving to go grocery shopping pretty soon, so I can just throw it in Zack's car when he comes to pick me up."

"Perfect. Thanks, bro," I said, flashing Kimberly a grin.

"No worries, man. See you in a couple hours."

And that was that.

The distraction provided there kept my mind off of my impending conversation with Kimberly for the rest of breakfast, but halfway into doing the dishes, I started thinking about it again. I'll admit, I was both scared and nervous about what was coming. Just last night, she had promised that she would not break my heart again, but part of me could not help but to wonder if she was going to live up to her word.

With the last plate inserted into the dishwasher, Kimberly pushed the door up with her leg, turned to me while wiping her hands on a towel, and said, "Let's go to the living room."

I just nodded and followed her in silence, and when she told me to take a seat on the couch, I did so immediately. Once I was seated comfortably, Kimberly found her way onto my lap, her arms going around my neck as mine went around her waist.

"Okay," she began, taking a deep breath. "First things first; last night, before you went out looking for Kat, you…you said that you loved me."

I nodded. "And I meant it, too."

"I know you did," she said, smiling. "But I also know why you walked away right after you said it. You didn't want me to feel pressured to say it back, and I appreciate that, but the simple truth here, Tommy, is that I love you too." I could do little more than smile back at her as she added, "And if I'm being honest with myself, I never really stopped loving you. I just…learned to live without you, I guess."

"Yeah," I murmured, very much sharing this particular feeling with her.

"The reason I'm telling you this now," Kimberly went on, "is because I wanted you to know where I stand before I say what I'm about to say."

"Okay," I said, nodding as I felt my heartbeat start to quicken rapidly.

"This last week with you has been incredible, Tommy; without a doubt, the best week of my entire life," she continued, again leaving me smiling. "You made me remember what it felt like to really be loved, and I can't thank you enough for that. But as much as I'd love to stay here and be with you every day, I can't give that to you right now. I have responsibilities in Florida that I have to take care of before I can even think about moving back to California…"

"Are you breaking up with me before we even became official?" I questioned hesitantly.

Laughing, Kimberly shook her head and said, "No, in fact, I'm doing the exact opposite. I'm giving you the choice, Tommy. In my heart, more than anything I know that you're the person I want to be with. But we tried long distance once, and I hurt you in one of the worst ways imaginable. Last night, I told you that as long as you're willing to give me your heart, I'll never break it again, and I meant that. At the same time, though, I can understand if you don't trust me in that situation again. So I'm leaving it up to you; if you think you can trust me with five thousand miles between us, then I'm yours."

Honestly, I didn't even have to think about it. I wasn't exactly ecstatic with the two choices presented to me, but I also knew where my heart lied. Still, I wanted her to think that this was a hard decision for me.

Wearing a contemplative expression, I pretended to ignore the growing look of nervous anticipation on Kimberly's face for nearly two minutes of pure silence. Apparently, that was as much as she could handle. "_Well?_" she asked expectantly.

Sighing, I made sure she saw the sadness that had suddenly come over me as I turned away, but when I returned my attention to her a few seconds later, my look had changed completely. "I didn't want to make it too easy for you," I answered, grinning widely. "Of course I'll be your date for the dance."

For a brief moment, Kimberly seemed confused, but then realization dawned and a warm smile came over her. "You remember that?"

"Our first kiss?" I replied. "Of course I remember it. How could I forget it?"

Still smiling — and now slightly flushed — Kimberly took my face in her hands and kissed me softly. "I love you, Tommy," she murmured when we finally pulled apart. "And I promise, once I've taken care of everything in Florida, figuring out my move back to California is going to be the first thing I do."

"Good," I said quietly, my fingertips running up and down her leg. "I don't expect you to make a decision now, but when you get to the point where you're ready to seriously think about moving back, I want you to at least consider staying with me."

"Really?" she asked, sounding a bit surprised. I just smiled and nodded as she went on, "I-I don't know, Tommy. I would really have to think about that."

"I understand," I said truthfully, knowing that a decision like that was not one meant to be made on a whim. "Just know that my door is always open."

Kimberly merely murmured her thanks and gave me another kiss.

Again, I wasn't entirely thrilled with the end result of this conversation, but I wasn't going to risk losing her again, either. She had already apologized profusely, admitted that she had made a mistake, and promised multiple times never to do it again. If I wasn't going trust her now, I would never be able to do so.

"We should probably get ready to go," she said shortly thereafter.

"Yeah, we should," I replied, nodding.

"Save water?" she questioned with an evil grin.

Laughing, I nodded once more and said, "Definitely."

Forty-five minutes later, Kimberly and I were on the road. With Kimberly in a pink University of Miami sweatshirt, jeans, and white tennis shoes, and me in a forest green University of Reefside Cougar's hoodie, jeans, and red-and-white Nike sneakers, we looked more like we were rooting against opposite teams at a college football game than going to a memorial service.

Originally, I had wanted this to be much more of a formal affair — though, in my head, I never really had a grasp as to what that entailed — but the decision to hold the service at the exact location of the Command Center had made doing so more than a bit difficult. It just wasn't very feasible to wear dresses and high heels, or suits and dress shoes, to a memorial service that required a two mile walk up a desert mountain.

Honestly, though, I don't really think Zordon cared at all what we wore. More than anything, I think he was watching the nineteen of us with pride, knowing that the legacy he created would still live on in his name. And Kimberly agreed with me on this one as well. Just the fact that we all were coming together as a group was what really mattered.

It was just before nine o'clock when we left Reefside, and just past ten-fifteen by the time we arrived at the outskirts, coming to a stop at the base of the mountain. "Looks like we're the first ones here," said Kimberly, noting the obvious lack of other vehicles in the area.

"Yeah, looks like it," I replied, nodding as I reached for the door handle.

No sooner had the words come out of my mouth, though, than I froze mid-reach at the rumbling sound of a powerful engine approaching from nearby. Swiveling back around, I looked to my right, through Kimberly's window, and saw a royal blue Jeep driving towards us from the north, opposite of the way that we had come in.

"Who's that?" asked Kimberly, looking at me curiously.

"I think…" I murmured, trailing off for a moment as I watched the Jeep grow closer. It sat much lower than mine; had no top, retractable or otherwise; and a long bar shaped like the top half of a hexagon ran from the top of the windshield to the front of the open trunk. Almost instantly, a smile crept over me as I added, "Justin."

"Wait, little Justin?" she questioned in surprise.

"Yeah," I replied, grinning from ear to ear as I nodded. "Come on."

With that, I climbed out of the Jeep and moved to stand near the front bumper, Justin's Jeep reaching a slow crawl before finally coming to a stop a few feet away from mine. The second the Jeep had stopped, Justin jumped out and started running towards me right as I felt an approaching-from-behind Kimberly place her hand on the small of my back.

"Tommy!" he called out, smiling toothily.

"Justin!" I exclaimed. "What's up man?"

Looking much like I remembered him, but a good deal taller and with slightly shorter hair, Justin came to a stop in front of me, at which point we engaged in a rather elaborate handshake that he and I had developed on the ghost ship that had taken us through the Nemesis Triangle en route to Muranthias. Kimberly giggled heartily at this.

"You remember Kim, right?" I asked once we had finished the handshake.

"Of course I remember Kim!" Justin answered, still smiling brightly.

"Hey, kiddo, how ya been?" said Kimberly, ruffling Justin's hair a bit before pulling him into a quick hug.

"Good. I've been really good," he replied. "Wow, it's so great to see you guys again!"

"Yeah, man, you too," I said, nodding.

"Yeah," he murmured, nodding as well, "But what in the world did you do to your hair?"

Again, Kimberly had a laugh at my expense as I half-scoffed, half-laughed, and rolled my eyes exaggeratedly. "Long story short," I began, "I bet Kim that I could beat her at a carnival game, my hair was the stakes if she beat me, and beat me she did."

"Oh, man, that sucks," said Justin, trying not to laugh. "You always loved your hair."

"Yeah, but this isn't too bad," I said, shrugging. Then I put my arm around Kimberly's shoulder, pulled her in close, and added, "Plus, she likes it, so I think I'll be okay."

A confused expression came over Justin at that point, the young former Ranger staring at us in silence for almost a minute before realization seemed to dawn. "Oh, so you guys are —" he started hesitantly, pointing back and forth between me and Kimberly, "— now?"

"Yeah, we are."

Kimberly said it before I could, nodding her head as she did so; her tone was kind, but there was also a hint of possessiveness in it as well, like she wanted Justin to know, without a doubt, that I was hers again. I didn't mind, though. I had no problem telling everyone in the world that I was hers again, mostly because I was so damn happy to be hers again.

Justin just nodded, and pretty soon silence lapsed. With no other Rangers having arrived yet, I looked between Justin and Kimberly, and said, "Do you guys want to head up?"

Both were in agreement, and with that, we began the hike. The mountain was very steep, and since Justin had never been forced to walk it before — like Kimberly and I had on so many powerless occasions — Kimberly led the way and I stayed in back, ready to grab Justin if he slipped or took a bad step.

"So what's up with that Jeep, man?" I asked a few minutes in. "You're not old enough to drive yet, are you?"

"Nope," said Justin casually. "But I don't drive Storm Blaster. Storm Blaster drives me."

"What are you talking about?" I questioned with a confused laugh.

"Well, Storm Blaster's not really a _normal_ car," he began to explain. "You know about Lightning Cruiser, right?"

"Lightning Cruiser?"

"Yeah, Lightning Cruiser," he said matter-of-factly. "You know, T.J.'s flying Corvette?"

"T.J. has a flying Corvette?"

Storm Blasters, Lightning Cruisers, flying Corvettes…I had no idea what this kid was talking about.

"Wow, you're really behind on the times, Tommy," said Justin with a laugh. "Storm Blaster and Lightning Cruiser are sentient vehicles from another planet. Lightning Cruiser's not really a Corvette either, it just looks like one. You'll probably flip when you hear this, but we got them not even a week after you guys left the team."

"Aaaaaand we can officially chalk that one up as a new addition on 'The List of Reasons Why Tommy Dislikes Dimitria,'" I muttered, shaking my head. "T.J. serves for a week and gets a flying sports car; I serve for over four years, and what do I get?"

"You get me," Kimberly called out from in front. "That's better than a flying sports car."

"Could've fooled me," I said beneath my breath so only Justin could hear.

But where the other guys would have been able to control themselves, Justin could not and he burst out laughing, immediately giving me away in the process. As Kimberly looked back and gave me an evil glare, I reminded myself that Justin, while definitely very mature for his age, was still very much a kid in many respects.

"So how does this car work?" I asked Justin, hoping that continued conversation would eventually make Kimberly forget about her displeasure with me.

"It's pretty easy, really," he answered. "I just climb in, tell him where I want to go, and he takes me there. The best part is, I never have to put gas in him, and he never needs any kind of maintenance or repairs."

"Sounds like the kind of man that I need," Kimberly shot back at me with a sneer, Justin laughing hysterically once more.

Sighing to myself, I tapped Justin on the back and muttered, "Watch and learn." Then I looked up at Kimberly and, in a sing-song tone, called out, "I love you, Beautiful!"

It took a few seconds for her to look back again, but when she did, she was wearing a pleased smile. For many years, I had known and understood just how powerful that nickname was when it came to Kimberly. I doubt it would have worked if I had done something really bad, like cheat, but in smaller situations like these, the only thing that I had to do was call her "Beautiful" and all was quickly forgotten.

For his part, Justin — whose physical proximity was much closer to me than Kimberly — looked back with an impressed expression. "I'll have to remember that one," he said quietly. I just grinned and nodded.

We were about halfway up the mountain, some twenty minutes into our walk, when Kimberly eventually looked back again. However, it was not at me or Justin, but rather beyond us both.

"Looks like we've got visitors," she called out over her shoulder.

Stopping and turning around, I looked down the mountain and saw a cluster of people hiking towards us, maybe a fourth of the way up. They had stopped, and were waiting on a second group that was about five minutes behind them. Honestly, I was somewhat surprised to see the rest of my teammates all at once after I had told them last night that we could wait until noon.

Too far to see faces, the two groups were still easily discernible by the colors they were wearing: the black jeans and green tee shirt with the long-sleeved black undershirt was Adam; the denim shorts and what looked like a blue hooded Superman sweatshirt was sure to be Rocky; the two in yellow were Aisha and Tanya; and the blonde in pink was Katherine.

The second group was one less in numbers: at the front was Zack in khaki shorts and a black tee shirt; Trini was following him in jeans and a yellow sweater; Billy was close behind in black slacks and a blue polo; and Jason was bringing up the rear, wearing denim shorts and the long-sleeved home kit for the English soccer team Manchester United, whom his grandfather had played for long ago and whose colors — black, red, and gold — matched his Ranger colors perfectly.

Plus, just like he had promised, Jason was carrying his dad's acoustic guitar over his shoulder. Also, Zack was holding what looked to be a metal folding chair — which I assumed was for Kimberly — that he was currently using as a walking stick of sorts.

"Should we wait for them?" asked Justin.

"Nah, let's keep going," I answered, nodding towards the top of the mountain. "It'll be at least another fifteen minutes before they get this far."

Kimberly and I locked eyes at that moment, me hoping that she understood what I was trying to tell her — mostly that I didn't want to get stuck carrying any of that stuff. When a smirk came across her lips, I knew that she had gotten the message.

"Yeah, Tommy's right," Kimberly supplied, nodding as well. "We're better off if we just keep on going. At least if we wait for them at the top, we won't have to keep going afterwards."

So we kept on going. It took about another twenty minutes to make it to the top, and when we finally did, we were quite a bit dirtier than we had been at the bottom, not to mention the fact that none of us wanted to go on another hike like that for a very, very long time. It wasn't even the distance that was bad; we were all in good enough shape that a two mile walk was no problem at all. But two miles of steep, mountainous incline like that left my legs throbbing more than an hour on the treadmill followed by a full leg work-out with weights.

Between rubbing, shaking, bouncing around, and stretching, we spent the next few minutes doing everything we could think of to keep our legs from cramping up. When the burning sensation had finally stopped — at least for me, anyway — I turned to face the vast blanket of emptiness where the Command Center had once stood, and then started walking in that direction while trying to brush as much dirt from my clothes as possible..

As I moved beyond the cliff to my right, it was then that I saw the Megaship docked behind it. Smirking to myself, I turned back around and called out, "Hey, Justin, come check this out!"

"What is it?" he yelled back, hands cupped over his mouth.

"Just come on!" I replied encouragingly, waving him towards me.

He seemed to weigh his options for a few moments, but in the end, he shook his head and started running towards me. "What is —?" His question stopped short just as he reached my side and set his sights on what I was seeing.

Looking down at him, I noticed that a grin had overtaken Justin even larger than the one he had worn when he first saw Kimberly and me. This was no surprise to me, though. He had obviously spent much more time with T.J., Carlos, Cassie, and Ashley than me and my teammates, so those bonds would obviously be stronger as well.

"You want me to let them know you're here?" I asked.

"Can you?" he questioned excitedly.

Smiling, I brought my wrist to my lips, pushed back my sleeve a bit, found Andros' frequency on my communicator, and said, "Andros, its Tommy, you there?"

Moments later, I heard, "I'm here, Tommy. The other Space Rangers and I are in the Megaship. We're docked on the backside of the southern cliffs."

"I know, I'm staring at the Megaship right now."

"What? But how?" he asked. "That's impossible. I set the cloaking shield myself when we arrived here last night."

"I don't know what to tell you, man, but I'm looking right at it. Maybe only Rangers can see it or something," I replied uncertainly. "Anyway, I just wanted to let you know that Kim and I are here, and the rest of the Rangers are walking up the mountain right now. Oh, and by the way," I added, seeing the expectant look on Justin's face as Kimberly approached from behind him, "I have some kid over here with me who says he knows you. He's about five-foot-five, skinny, likes to wear blue, hair like one of The Beatles…"

At that moment, Justin looked like he wanted nothing more than to kick me in the shins as hard as he could, but before he could do anything, the boarding ramp to the Megaship hissed open and began to lower towards the ground.

"See," I said to him. "They knew who I was talking about."

"Well you didn't leave much room for guessing, did you?" grumbled Justin, smiling despite himself as the Space Rangers started walking out of the Megaship. To my surprise, though, it was not Andros leading them this time. Rather, T.J. was the first out, followed by Carlos, Cassie, and Ashley. It was only then — as Justin tore off to greet them — that Andros came out, with Zhane close behind him and, finally, Karone bringing up the rear.

Just as Justin began exchanging handshakes and hugs with the other Rangers, Kimberly arrived at my side with her hand on the small of my back. My arm immediately went around her shoulder, pulling her in as I placed a kiss to the side of her head.

"Zordon would definitely be happy to see this," she murmured, somehow knowing that I needed this reassurance even before I did. Kimberly had always had a way of doing that, saying whatever needed to be said ahead of time to prevent me from questioning or doubting something later on.

And in the coming days, I would, of course, find myself questioning the very thing she had just assured me off. But her words would be there to remind me of why I was wrong to doubt it…

Confident for now, though, I smiled down at her and said, "He's seeing it, Kim. Wherever he is out there, he's seeing it."

Kimberly's eyes became misty at that, and my casual hold on her quickly turned into a full on hug, my chin atop her head as she laid the side of her face against my chest. "I miss him so much, Tommy," she whispered.

"I know you do, Beautiful," I said softly. "I miss him too. But he's out there, watching over us like he always has. And you know what? He's proud, Kim. He's proud of all of us for everything that we've accomplished, not just as Rangers, but as people. And not just as individuals, either, but together as well."

"God, I hope so," she replied, holding me just a little bit tighter.

Over her head, I could see Justin and the Space Rangers heading back towards us, and I quietly alerted Kimberly of this just in case she wanted to walk away and regain her composure a bit. She said that she was fine, though, and moved back into her previous position at my side, smiling brightly at the approaching group.

"Hey guys," she called out with a wave.

Again, hugs and handshakes were exchanged all around, and I couldn't help but notice the way Justin seemed utterly infatuated with Carlos and T.J., just like Cassie was with Kimberly. The remaining four stayed in their individual couples, however: Ashley near Andros, and Karone near Zhane.

Pretty soon we were making our way back around the cliff, and only a few minutes later, the rest of the Rangers began to arrive. Rocky's head was the first that I saw peeking over the edge of the cliff and, the second he had made it onto level ground, he rolled onto his back with his knees towards the sky and his hands folded atop his rapidly rising and falling stomach.

"Never…again," he groaned with his eyes closed, "Never…again."

"Quit your whining, Rocky," grumbled Adam, clambering over the edge and onto his knees before pushing himself into a standing position. Then he walked over to Rocky and began using the toe of his shoe to prod the former Red and Blue Ranger in the ribs. "Get up and help, you lazy ass."

"Alright, alright, just get off me," Rocky muttered in reply, slowly getting up as Adam walked away with a roll of his eyes.

"Come on," I said to Kimberly as we watched this happening. "We should probably help too."

Once Adam had assisted Tanya in climbing over the ledge and Rocky had done the same with Aisha, I reached down for the barely-visible guitar neck with one hand and stuck out the other one to help Jason up. Muttering his thanks, we briefly shook hands as I passed the guitar off to Kimberly, and then reached down again to get the folding chair from Zack while Jason grabbed his other hand and pulled him up. One by one, Jason and I continued helping everyone up, until at last we were all atop the mountain.

Hugs and handshakes took place once more, but aside from Justin — who I still had to introduce to the likes of Zack, Trini, and Billy — we had all caught up with each other the previous night, and it did not take very long for the others to begin looking around uncertainly within the circle that we had formed. Of course, when most of those uncertain looks are being sent in your direction, it makes recognizing them a whole lot more obvious.

Knowing that they were primarily waiting on me, I began looking around between them. "So, um," I started hesitantly, "I don't really know how you guys want to do this. Zordon affected so many more people than just us; part of me feels like his memory deserves a lot more than this little group standing on a mountain in the middle of nowhere. Still, it's kind of hard to organize a traditional service for someone when that someone is an inter-dimensional being who we only ever saw as a head trapped inside a giant tube."

A few of the Rangers chuckled lightly at that as I went on, "Anyway, there are some things that I want to say, and I know Jason has some as well. Kim's also volunteered to sing something, hence the guitar…but that's really it. So please, if anyone else has anything they want to share — a story or maybe just a few words — don't hesitate to do so."

Heads nodded in unison at that, but soon we were left in silence once more. Again, it was going to have to be me who broke the proverbial ice. Turning my attention to Jason, I asked, "Do you want me to go first or you?"

Jason shrugged. "You can, I guess."

Having pretty much been expecting this, I just nodded and said, "Alright."

In the days leading up to this moment, everything I had wanted to say about Zordon had made perfect sense in my head; the only thing I had truly been sure of. Now, though, as I found myself trying to verbalize those same thoughts to eighteen other people…well, let's just say it wasn't the easiest of tasks for me. Barking orders, giving a few encouraging words here and there…I was good at that stuff, but eloquent speeches had never been a strong suit of mine. Still, I knew it had to be done.

Lowering my head, I closed my eyes and tried to gather my thoughts together as best as I possibly could. Allowing just a few moments for me to do this, I silently nodded to myself, took a deep breath, and looked up with my eyes open, scanning slowly from Ranger to Ranger. It was then that I felt Kimberly reach out for my hand, giving it a reassuring squeeze that brought my eyes to her face and the equally reassuring smile that she was wearing.

It was all the encouragement that I needed.

"To most of you, you've only ever known me as one person," I began, continuing to look around at them. "I'm Tommy Oliver, the guy who's led the Power Rangers on Earth longer than anyone else. When Zordon died, I was the first one Andros told. I even called some of you myself to tell you the news. And when we decided to have this service, I was the one everybody depended on to organize it and make the details work. Now, I'm not telling you this because I want you to feel guilty, or because I think I'm better than any of you, or anything else like that. I'm telling you this because there are five people here — and everyone here knows who they are — who knew me at a time when I could never have been depended on to do those things that you all needed me to do these past two weeks.

"Ask one of them. When I first joined the team, I was not the best of teammates by a long shot. I was irresponsible, forgetful, a loner, moody at times for no reason at all…but it was because of Zordon — and my teammates as well, of course — that I eventually grew into someone that you all felt like you could trust with something as important as this. Zordon influenced us all in so many ways, different for each and every one of us. Yes, some of us knew him longer, so we may have been influenced more, but at the end of the day, each of us had a connection to Zordon that went beyond what we shared as a team; we had a connection that was unique and belonged only to us as individuals."

I was not surprised to hear Kimberly sniffling at my side, nor Katherine and Cassie standing across the circle from me. Pinks had a tendency to be the ones who wore their hearts on their sleeves the most, but in this case, they were not the only ones taken by sudden emotion as we focused on remembering Zordon. All of the women, even Karone, were either misty eyed or on their way there, but so were Andros and all of the men that I had served with as well.

"For me," I continued, swallowing my own emotion for the time being, "Zordon was a combination of many different roles: he was a father figure; a friend; a confidant; someone that I always looked up to; and someone who was always willing to give advice if you asked for it. But what impacted me the most with Zordon was that, where most would have given up on me after the tenth time I had left my Morpher in my gym bag, or the twentieth time I had forgotten my communicator in my locker, Zordon continued to have faith in me. I never understood it, but he saw something in me at a time where I didn't really see a whole hell of a lot in myself. Ask these guys…when I first joined the team, I had a complete lack of self-worth, and I was in a constant state of guilt over the fact that the only reason I had even become a Ranger was because Rita saw something in me that made her think I would be a good asset to her.

"More than a few of us have been turned evil through spells of some kind or another, but I was a neutral party when it happened. I had no connection to the Rangers when Rita chose me, yet she chose me anyway, and for the longest time, I didn't understand why and I battled myself trying to figure it out. But then, late one night, a week or so after the first time Zordon brought me back to the team, he teleported me to the Command Center alone. Alpha-5 was powered down for the night, and for nearly two hours, Zordon and I just…_talked_."

A few of the Rangers seemed surprised by this, but more of them seemed to take it naturally, almost like they had experienced the very same thing…

"We didn't talk about anything in particular, just life in general. Pretty soon, I was telling him things that I had never told anyone else," I explained. "I talked to him about Kim, how I was crazy about her, but how I also thought that I would never be good enough for her." Kimberly gave my hand a fierce squeeze at that, looking up at me with tear-stained eyes as I went on, "I talked to him about my teammates, how I suddenly had friends who genuinely cared about me and how weird that was for me to adapt to, having come from a military family that moved a lot when I was young. I talked to him about Jason, and how he was becoming the brother to me that I had always wanted growing up."

Now it was Jason and I who locked eyes, and when I noticed that his were full of tears, mine suddenly began to fill with them as well, almost as though it was okay for me to cry as long as he was too.

"Eventually, he asked me what I thought it was that made me doubt myself so much," I continued. "I didn't really know what to say at first, mostly because no one had ever asked me that before. People were always encouraging, sure, telling me that I had no reason to doubt myself or my abilities, stuff like that, but no one had ever forced me to justify it like he did that night. And what he made me realize was that I couldn't justify it. The only thing holding me back was myself, and if not for Zordon, I don't know if I ever would have realized that. Maybe even more than my parents, it's because of Zordon that I'm this person you see here today; someone you all felt like you could put your trust into, not just on the field of battle, but in situations like the one we're in right now, as well. I cherish the role that I've been given, and I genuinely appreciate that you all are willing to put so much trust and faith in me, but none of those things would have happened if not for Zordon. For that...I will always be grateful."

After a few moments where no one said anything, I quietly added, "Uh, that's all I really have to share, I guess."

Most of the Rangers nodded their heads solemnly, and I couldn't help but notice the particular emotion with which Kimberly and Jason had been taken. Kimberly, with silent tears streaming down her face, was holding onto my arm so fiercely I feared she was going to pull it straight from the socket at any moment; Jason, who was standing three to the right of Kimberly, had his head bowed with his hand over his brow, covering his eyes, and I could tell from the way his body shuddered up and down every few seconds that he was crying as well.

I think it was clear to everyone that Jason was not going to be the next one of us to speak given his current state. Much to my surprise, it was the ever-quiet Adam who suddenly cleared his throat, looking around at us awkwardly.

"So, um, yeah…Zordon," he murmured, looking down at the ground while simultaneously kicking it with the tip of his sneaker. "I mean, I know I wasn't the first of you guys to know him or anything, but aside from Tommy and Billy, I was the one who spent the most time with him. And, like Tommy, I doubted myself a lot growing up too, even more so when I joined the team. I never understood what was so special about me, what Zordon saw in me that made him think I was the right person to take over the spot Zack had filled so well. Yeah, I was a good fighter, and I guess morally I'm a pretty good person, but there are thousands of people out there just like that; so why me? Was I simply in the right place at the right time, or was there something more to it than just that?

"Honestly, to this day I still don't know what it was that made him choose me. But he did; again, like with Tommy, he saw something in me that I didn't see in myself, and in turn, I not only got a chance to help people every day for nearly three years, but I also met some of the greatest people that I've ever known and made friendships that I know in my heart will last a lifetime. I wish I could do more to show my appreciation for everything he gave me than just saying thank you and hoping that he hears me."

And with that, the proverbial floodgates had opened. Soon, Billy was speaking; then it was Trini; then Aisha, and T.J., and Andros, on and on until eventually almost all of us — including Jason — had spoken. Aside from T.J. and Andros, the other Space and second-generation Turbo Rangers remained silent, but every single Ranger that I had served with said at least a few words.

Again, though, I was left in surprise, this time by young Justin, who delivered a heartfelt, slightly tearful anecdote regarding how hard it had been for him, what with being a twelve year-old kid on a team full of almost eighteen year-olds, and how Zordon — in his last days before leaving Earth for Eltar — had a conversation with him similar to mine that helped to convince him that he belonged on the team just as much as the rest of us.

At some point or another — and more than once for most of us — we all eventually broke down and let our emotions show. The second generation Turbo Rangers seemed to be the least emotional by far, but I had pretty much expected that. Had it been Dimitria we were having this service for, I imagined our roles would have been very much reversed. Seeing Andros, Zhane, and Karone all openly weep as Andros tried to speak about Zordon, though, made me wonder if those three didn't have a deeper relationship with our fallen mentor than they had so far let on...

With Kimberly standing right next to me and holding my hand as Jason finished speaking about what Zordon meant to him, I brought my lips to her ear and, through misty eyes of my own, whispered, "Do you want me to get the guitar now?"

We locked eyes and I immediately gave her what I hoped was a reassuring smile. Swallowing hard, she returned the smile and then nodded her head in silence, so I simply nodded back and released my hold on her hand, walking around the outside of the circle to the spot where the guitar and chair rested against the base of the nearest cliff. When I had both items in hand, I carried them back to Kimberly's side and, as I handed her the guitar, quietly asked, "Where do you want me to put the chair?"

"Right here's fine," she replied, pointing to the small space in between us as she took a step back.

As I went about unfolding the chair, I could hear a few excited murmurs coming from the surrounding Rangers. Kimberly's musical talents were well known amongst those she had served with, and I'm sure Cassie had said something to at least a few of her teammates following her conversation with Kimberly the night before.

Once the chair was in place, I took Kimberly's free hand, stepped in close, and placed a soft kiss to her cheek. "They're all yours, Beautiful," I murmured, slipping off to join Jason and Zack.

By the time I had made it over to them and wedged myself in between the pair, Kimberly was already seated with the guitar strapped around her shoulder, plucking at it lightly with her fingertips. "Did you bring a pick, Jase?" she asked, looking up at him.

"Oh, yeah, I did actually; thought you might need one," Jason replied with a grin, reaching into his right hip pocket as he started walking towards her. He then pulled a green guitar pick from his pocket and handed it off to Kimberly, who took it with a quiet thank you.

As Jason started back towards Zack and me, Kimberly said, "So, a few of you will know this song. It's really short, so I'm sorry about that, but I just couldn't think of anything else to sing that seemed more fitting than this. So, uh, yeah…here goes…"

She then began picking at the guitar strings, her fingers moving up and down the neck to create a tune I recognized almost immediately. It was the song that she and Zack had written and played for me when the last bit of my Green Ranger powers were finally begging to fade away for good, sadness controlling me with the realization that my time as a Ranger would soon be ending for good as well.

"Down the road, we never know, what life may have in store," she sang, her eyes locked on me, the words flowing as beautifully as I remembered them. "Winds of change, they rearrange, our lives more than before."

Without even realizing it, Zack had slipped away and was now on a knee next to Kimberly, jumping in as she went on, "But you'll never stand alone my friend. Memories never die. And in our hearts, they'll always live. And never say goodbye."

I'm not going to lie; I was pretty much full on crying just from memories alone by the time they had finished. Again, I didn't even realize what was happening around me, as I now had Jason's hand on my left shoulder and Trini's on my right; that's how utterly lost in the song I was. It had done wonders for me at a time in my life that was filled with fear and uncertainty, and apparently it still held the same power over me that it did all those years ago.

As everyone clapped for Kimberly and Zack, I immediately walked over to them. "Awesome job, man," I said to Zack, shaking his hand and pulling him in for a quick hug.

"Thanks, T," he replied, grinning.

Releasing Zack, I stepped around him and found myself face to face with Kimberly, who was smiling incredibly brightly. "Sooooo?" she asked expectantly, elongating one word far more than I thought was possible.

"You were amazing, of course," I answered, returning the smile as I extended my hands to her. Taking them, she allowed me to help her onto her feet, at which point I took her face in my hands and kissed her in a way that I hoped would convey more than my words ever could.

When we eventually broke apart, Kimberly fell to my side and placed her arm around my waist as mine went around her shoulder. Looking to the other Rangers as they chatted quietly amongst themselves, a proud smile came over me. Though it was not the most lavish of services by any means, we had spent well over an hour talking about Zordon and what he meant to each of us, and I felt that that alone was a very fitting tribute to the man who had taught us so much about life and what it meant to be a good person.

Not to mention it was much more than I had been expecting considering the only ones besides myself that I knew would be involved coming into it were Jason and Kimberly. All in all, I think it turned out really well.

"How do you feel about inviting everyone back to the house?" I murmured to Kimberly. "There are still a ton of drinks left over, plus all that stuff in the freezer from Costco that we never got around to using and that I'll never be able to consume all of by myself before it goes bad."

"Yeah," Kimberly replied, smiling and nodding. "That sounds like a good idea."

And so I proposed it to the group, all of whom were in agreement. Then I turned to Andros and said, "So how about a ride down?"

--


	8. Future Preparations

_**Title: The Hexagon**_

_**Chapter Seven — "Future Preparations"**_

_**Original Posting Date: April 6, 2010 **_

--

Fortunately for me and my teammates, Andros and the other Space Rangers were more than willing to provide us with a lift down the mountain courtesy of the Astro Megaship, Mark I; its official title, as Andros soon explained to us. Since the ride was obviously not going to be long, most of us remained in the entry area near the now ascended boarding ramp, chatting casually with whoever happened to be near us.

In my case, it was Kimberly and Jason. No surprise there, right?

As the Megaship lifted off the ground and began moving slowly towards our cars, I looked between my two closest friends and said, "How would you two feel about switching spots for the ride back?"

"Why?" asked Kimberly, looking at me with a curious expression. "Not that I mind, or anything; I'm just wondering."

"Well, there were some things I wanted to talk with Jason about in private last night, but we never got around to it because we had to play hide-and-seek outside for an hour while you guys were all nice and warm playing _Guesstures_ inside," I explained matter-of-factly, grinning at her once I had finished. "So are you okay with that?" I asked her directly. If I had thought Jason was going to have an opinion one way or another, I would have asked him as well, but he was way too easy going to care whose car he rode in.

"Yeah, I guess so," she replied with a shrugging smile. "It'll give Trini and me a chance to bug Billy and Zack like we used to do when we were kids."

"Awesome. Thanks, Beautiful," I said, pecking a kiss to her cheek. Then, just for show, I looked to Jason and questioned, "You cool with that, partner?"

Jason simply looked at me blankly and said, "I'm not even going to justify that with a response."

Chuckling, I nodded and said, "Alright, it's settled then." Looking around the room until I found Zack, I then called out to him and asked, "Hey, bro, is it cool if Kim rides with you guys back to my house? I got some stuff I need to talk with Jase about."

"Yeah, man, no problem," Zack answered, his line of thinking clearly nowhere near Kimberly's. I had a feeling he would soon be cursing his decision, though I was certainly not going to tell him that.

Once the Megaship touched down twenty or so yards away from where everyone was parked, the Space team came back into the entryway to see us off as the boarding ramp descended towards the ground. Shaking hands with Andros, I asked, "Are you guys heading straight to my house?"

"No," he replied, shaking his head. "In fact, we'll probably be a little bit behind you, now that you mention it. The thrusters on the Megaship have been acting up recently, so we're leaving it at the NASADA spaceport for a few days while their technicians there take a look at it. Luckily, the others still have their cars there from when they chased after Zordon."

"Yeah, well, hopefully someone over there has been running the engines every few days or you guys are going to have a hell of a time getting them to start," I told him seriously, but with a chuckle. "But anyway, Jason's riding back to the house with me. I'm going to start with him, mostly because I'm pretty sure I already know where he'll stand on this once he knows how serious it is. After that, we'll move on to Zack and Trini."

"Okay," said Andros, nodding. After a few moments of silence, he then added, "You do realize almost all of your team is on the ground waiting for you, right?"

Startled, I whirled around to see that I was the only one left in the room besides Kimberly who wasn't a Space Ranger or Karone. Smiling towards Kimberly, who was standing near the boarding ramp with her arms across her chest, I looked back at Andros, chuckled, and said, "Well, at least one of them waited for me, right?"

Andros laughed, we said our goodbyes, and moments later Kimberly and I were on the ground with the rest of the Rangers. Standing at a safe distance away from the Megaship, we watched as it lifted off the ground and shot into the sky, everyone looking around at each other seeming very impressed towards what they had just witnessed. Once the Megaship was out of sight, though, everyone's attention went to me.

"Do you guys want to head back to my house?" I asked, looking between them.

With everyone in agreement, I bade Kimberly a temporary goodbye near Zack's SUV with a long kiss and then headed towards my Jeep with Jason coming up on my right and falling into stride alongside me, guitar and chair in hand. "That was gross, you know that?" he said, sticking his index and middle fingers into his mouth as if to make himself vomit.

Rolling my eyes, I took the chair from him as I chuckled and replied, "Don't hate the player, bro. Hate the game."

"That was quite possibly the lamest thing I've ever heard you say," he told me just as we reached my Jeep, depositing the guitar and chair in the trunk.

I, unfortunately, had no opportunity for a snappy comeback due to the fact that Justin was approaching us from behind Jason. "What's up man?" I called out to him, looking beyond Jason to show that it was not he I was addressing.

As Jason turned around to see who I was talking to, Justin came to a stop and then looked nervous all of a sudden. "Uh —" he began, kicking at the dirt he was staring at. "I mean…it's cool if I come over, right?" he asked, barely raising his eyes to meet mine.

Staring at him in confusion for a few seconds, when I could finally do something else, it was nothing more than shaking my head and laughing. Eventually, as I noticed Justin looking even more nervous — and now slightly embarrassed as well — I forced myself to calm down, took a deep breath, and said, "Yeah, man. Of course you can come over. Why wouldn't it be cool?"

"I dunno," muttered Justin, hands stuffed in his pockets as he shrugged his shoulders. "It's just…you guys are all adults now and I'm still a kid."

I opened my mouth to reply, but before I could, Jason said, "Did you wear a Morpher and fight on the good side?"

Justin looked at me like he thought Jason was asking him a trick question. With no idea what Jason was thinking at that moment, I could merely shrug my shoulders and give him an apologetic look in return.

Sighing, Justin returned his attention to Jason and, very simply, said, "Yes."

"Good," said Jason, nodding once. "Then you're family; anywhere that we are, you're welcome there too."

Justin grinned at that. "Cool," he replied, looking to me. "So how do I get to your house?"

"Just tell Storm Blaster to follow me," I answered. "It, uh, it can do that right?"

Apparently it could because, without a word to either of us, Justin turned around and started walking towards his Jeep. I watched as he hopped in, a pair of racing seatbelts immediately coming over his shoulders and locking into place with no assistance from him at all. Then, finally, he looked at us with a wide smile and yelled, "Storm Blaster, follow Tommy!"

His Jeep came to life at once, the headlights flickering and the engine roaring loudly as the vehicle shook from side to side. "Guess that's our cue," said Jason.

"Yeah, I guess so," I replied, shaking my head with a laugh as we climbed into my Jeep.

Thirty seconds later, we were pulling away from the mountainside. Turning the radio off, I took the dark Ray-Ban sunglasses from my center console and slid them into place over my eyes, hanging my arm out the window and briefly checking my side mirror to make sure Justin was behind us as we drove. "You ready for this?" I questioned, looking to my right.

"Ready for what?" asked Jason, his eyes narrowed.

"For what I need to tell you," I answered simply.

"Is it bad?"

That wasn't really for me to decide, so I shrugged my shoulders and said, "It depends on how you look at it, I guess."

"Well then tell me what's going on," he said demandingly.

So I did. I told him every single thing that Andros had told me on the Megaship the night before, from the copied Power Coins to the Dark Rangers to the offspring of Zedd and Rita that none of us, not even Zordon, had known about. I told him these things knowing that I was likely going to have to tell him about my work with Andros and the tasks left for me by Zordon. At this juncture, I was prepared to explain myself to Jason in that regard, mostly because I knew — even more so than I had with Kimberly — that if anyone would understand my situation and support me in my efforts, it would be my best friend.

As I told him these things, I looked his way every few seconds to gauge how he was reacting to this news. For the most part, he seemed to take it all in stride, though he did have a very similar outburst to mine when I told him of Thrax.

"Okay, so let me get this straight," he began once I had finished. "When we left, Zordon accidentally made copies of the Power Coins that are locked in some kind of suspended animation or something. Theoretically, the three of us are supposed to be the only ones who can access the coins, but somehow this freak show none of us knew about has found a way to get to them, so we have to go get them first?"

"Yeah," I said, nodding and chuckling simultaneously. "I guess that about sums it up."

"Cool," said Jason, nodding as well. "How're we getting there?"

My head snapped his way at that. "That's all you're worried about?"

Jason shrugged. "Yeah, I guess so," he answered. "I mean, it doesn't really sound like there's a whole lot of options on this one. It's either we get them or he does, and you know there's no way in hell that I'm gonna let that happen."

"Well that makes things a whole lot easier," I said with a laugh. "To answer your question, I don't know how you're getting there. Andros said he would explain all the details to you, Zack, and Trini once you all had agreed to go. Which brings me to the next thing; we need to talk to Zack and Trini about this pretty much as soon as we get back to the house."

"Yeah, I agree," said Jason, nodding. "Listen, let me talk to them. I don't think Zack's going to be a problem, but Trini might. I know she loved being a Ranger, and being a part of this family means the world to her, but actually _being a Ranger_ in the sense we're talking about now…that's a chapter of her life she ended a long time ago, bro."

"You think she won't go?"

"No," said Jason, shaking his head. "I think she'll go. I just think it's going to take a bit of convincing, that's all. Luckily for you, Zack and I were always pretty good at convincing her to do stuff she didn't agree with at first."

"Okay then," I replied with a nod. "You can talk to them. But before you do, there's one last thing you need to know."

"What's that?"

"It's kind of complicated," I said truthfully.

Still, Jason gave me a cock-eyed look as he questioned, "More complicated than copied Power Coins and Zedd having a kid with Rita?"

Chuckling, I said, "You would think that'd be pretty hard to top, but yeah, it's a lot more complicated than that. And before I tell you anything, you have to promise me you won't speak a word of it to anyone outside of me, Kim, and Andros. We're the only ones who know what's going on, and until I'm ready to tell the others, it _has_ to stay that way."

Jason nodded almost at once. "Yeah, man, of course."

This was the response that I was pretty much expecting from him. I think part of the reason Jason and I got along so well was because we were both fiercely loyal people; neither one of us would ever even think about breaking the other person's trust when it came to something like this that was clearly a very serious situation.

"Okay," I started, and with that, I launched into a full on explanation just like the one I had given Kimberly in my basement. In the hopes that my honesty would be rewarded with a positive response, I made sure to leave not even the smallest detail out, telling him of everything from the Zeonizers — including the one I had given to Kimberly — to the various blueprints and documents left to me by Zordon, as well as the message our fallen mentor had given Andros in regards to helping me with my work.

Again, Jason seemed very unsurprised by any of this. "Well, you were always the one who cared the most, man. There's no denying that," he murmured when I had finished. "But what is it that you need from me? I don't know anything about the stuff you're dealing with."

I let out a chuckle at that. "Yeah, you do," I replied, shaking my head. "Maybe not the technical stuff that I need Andros' help with, but we need good Rangers, too, and in that respect, there's no one else I'd rather have than you. And I'm not just saying that to kiss your ass, either. I mean it, man. Just don't tell Kim I said that."

"Thanks, man. I appreciate it," he said with a smile. "But I'm still not going to be much help without powers. If we get the coins, though, I'm in."

Now it was my turn to thank him, which I did more than once in the twenty or so minutes that we had left until we reached my house. Between Jason and Kimberly, I now had the two people on my side that I had wanted the most going into this.

"I think you're wrong not telling the others, though," Jason supplied as we passed a mile marker on the highway announcing that Reefside was two miles away. "Honestly, I don't think Zordon would have wanted you and Andros to go at this stuff alone, man."

"Yeah, I know," I admitted truthfully. "I don't think he would want that either. But I don't even understand most of the stuff he left for me, and I don't want to start involving other people until I have a better idea of what we're dealing with. Trust me, though, I have every intention of telling the others; just…not right now."

That, however, was where the conversation ended. Before Jason could say anything back, I heard what sounded like screaming coming from my left and nearly crashed upon further investigation.

In the lane next to us, Zack's SUV had pulled alongside my Jeep, but Zack was not the one behind the wheel. Instead, it was Trini who was driving, though she wasn't easy to make out considering Zack was on all fours in his seat with his naked ass was hanging out the passenger-side window. Much to my dismay, as well as chagrin, Kimberly was doing the same in the seat behind him.

Unable to do anything but stare, it was Jason who finally brought me back to reality by grabbing the steering wheel, pushing it to the left, and yelling, "Tommy, watch where you're going bro!"

Whipping back around, I realized we had been drifting towards the lane on our right and the semi-truck coming up from behind. Letting out a few choice expletives, I regained control of the vehicle and then looked back at Zack and Kimberly, but by then, they were ahead of us, their heads replacing their backsides as they pointed and laughed.

"Kim just showed you her ass," I muttered in disbelief.

"Yeah, because she knew you'd turn into a fool and I'd want to throw up. Kim's like my sister, man, and no one _ever _wants to see that." Even though I knew that there had never even been a hint of romantic feelings between them, it still left me relieved to hear Jason say that he had not enjoyed the view.

"We talked this morning," I said in a murmur, looking at Jason, "About what's going to happen with us when she leaves and everything…"

"Oh yeah?" said Jason as I nodded. "Good stuff?"

I shrugged my shoulders. "It's not what I was hoping for, but we're official and that's what I really care about," I answered. "She said she still has stuff to take care of in Florida right now, but that she wanted to move back to California once it was done. She didn't say how long that would be though."

"So you're gonna do the long-distance thing again?" he asked, with what could only be described as a concerned expression.

"Yeah, we are," I answered, nodding again. "There's more to what happened between us than I can tell you, man. If Kim wants to tell you her side in the future, that's up to her, but she admitted to making a big mistake and has apologized for it over and over again since she got here. Deep down, I know she was sincere in doing those things; if I can't trust her now, I feel like I'm never going to be able to, you know?"

"Yeah, I hear you," said Jason, nodding as well. "And I hope everything works out for you guys, too, bro."

"Thanks, man," I replied as we moved onto the exit ramp a few cars behind Zack's SUV.

Ten minutes later, we were pulling into my driveway alongside the SUV just as the others were piling out of it. "You guys are idiots, you know that?" I said to Zack and Kimberly with a laugh as I hopped out of the Jeep. "I nearly crashed into a semi-truck."

"You're just mad you guys didn't do it first," Zack countered, laughing as well.

Moments later, though, the other Rangers began arriving and discussion of the mooning incident was placed on hold for the time being. Leading the way to the front door with Kimberly at my side, I looked back over my shoulder to find Jason standing near my Jeep with Zack and Trini, talking quietly and with a series of exaggerated hand movements.

Thankfully, no one else seemed to notice that they were staying behind while the rest of us went inside; either that or they just didn't want to interrupt what was obviously a private conversation. Reasoning that it was probably a combination of both options, I led the Rangers inside and then asked Kimberly to help me in the kitchen.

Instructing the others to make themselves at home, Kimberly and I walked away from the group. As we did so, she quietly asked, "Did you see the way Jason, Zack, and Trini were talking outside? It looked pretty serious; secretive, too."

"Yeah," I murmured, nodding. "There's, uh, there's some stuff going on with them right now. It's not really my place to talk about it, though. Once they figure it out, I'm sure they'll let everyone know what's happening."

"Is it bad?" she questioned, eyeing me curiously.

I knew I could not lie to her; she was too damn good at catching me. Instead, we stopped short of the refrigerator and I took her hand. "It's not my place to say, Beautiful," I answered softly. "Believe me, if I could talk to you about this, I would. I _want_ to talk to you about this. I just — I can't. I hope you can understand that."

Kimberly nodded. "I do understand," she replied, "And I can appreciate your position. At the same time, along with Billy, I've been friends with them since I was four years old. If they're in trouble, Tommy —"

But before she could finish, Rocky had burst through the swinging door, making his presence known with an emphatic declaration of, "I'm hungry! What's for eats?"

Laughing and shaking my head, I looked at Rocky and said, "We're getting stuff together right now, man. Here, wait a sec and you can take some chips and dip out for now."

With that, I grabbed a bag of tortilla chips from the pantry and dumped them into a large party bowl as Kimberly did the same with the salsa in the refrigerator, though obviously the bowl she used was much smaller. Holding the salsa bowl in one hand and the chips in the other, as Rocky walked back out he used his teeth to grab a chip, dipped it in the salsa, tipped his head back, and opened wide, taking the entire triangle into his mouth.

"Eww, that was gross," muttered Kimberly, laughing despite herself.

"Only Rocky," I said with another shake of my head, "Only Rocky."

Kimberly started to reply, but again was cut off before she could finish, this time by fairly loud conversation coming from the hallway. "Yo, where's Tommy?" I heard Zack call out, my eyes immediately shifting to Kimberly.

"We're in here, Zack!" she yelled at once, eager, I'm sure, to know what was happening between three of her oldest friends.

Moments later, the swinging door was pushed open again, this time by Zack, with Trini and Jason right behind him. Trini did not look too happy, but Jason and Zack were both smirking, which I took as a good sign.

"Should we tell everyone?" asked Jason.

"Do you want to tell me first?" I asked in return, perhaps a bit expectantly.

"If I'm willing to tell everyone else, doesn't that kind of answer it for you?" Jason questioned back at me.

"Why do I feel like I'm talking to Dimitria?" I replied, not even intending to ask a question. Seeing the blank looks on the other four faces, though, I quickly added, "Oh, right…you guys don't know her; she was a floating head too, only she was a bitch and answered everything in stupid questions."

"Man," interjected Zack, chuckling, "I'm glad I didn't have to deal with that."

I just laughed and nodded my head. Feeling like I knew where my three friends stood, I looked to Jason and said, "To the living room then?"

"To the living room," he said with a nod.

Leading the way, Kimberly came to my side and wrapped her arms around one of mine. "What is going on, Tommy?" she asked in a near whisper, a hint of urgency in her tone.

"You'll see," I murmured, smiling down at her as we entered the living room. Turning to face the rest of my teammates, I called out, "Hey guys!" Once I had their attention, I continued, "Jason, Zack, and Trini have something they need to talk to you about. So, uh, yeah…why don't you all kind of gather around over here so they don't have to yell."

"We're not the ones who are talking, bro, you are," Jason muttered behind me as the others started moving towards us. "I don't understand a single thing about what we're gonna be doing other than the coin part."

Cursing under my breath, I was forced to come face to face with the realization that this was one of those all-or-nothing moments that life likes to throw our way every so often. Jason, much to my surprise, had not asked the question in the car that I had been expecting: why did Andros come to me with this news first instead of them, when it clearly didn't involve me? Granted, I had told him everything about Zordon soon thereafter, but still…

Simply put, there was no way that I could get around explaining this situation to nine other people — not counting Jason and Kimberly, obviously — without one of them asking the question that Jason had failed to.

Sighing inwardly, knowing what I had to do, I looked around at my teammates and said, "Everyone find a seat and get comfortable. This is gonna take awhile."

--

"So that's pretty much it," I told them some fifteen minutes later, having just finished telling everyone about Thrax, the lost Power Coins, and why it was necessary for Jason, Zack, and Trini to go after them.

Aside from those three and myself, there was a general air about the others that seemed to be a combination of surprise and confusion. Some seemed more of one than the other, and vice-versa, but that was pretty much it.

Halfway through my explanation, I had silently decided not to tell them about my work with Zordon unless one of them asked a question that forced me to. Unfortunately for me, no sooner had I finished, than Rocky, of all people, piped up, "How'd you find out about this?"

Letting out a sigh, I locked eyes with Kimberly and knew at once that I had reached the point of no return. Shifting my attention to look amongst the other Rangers, I answered, "Andros told me, I told Jason, and Jason told Zack and Trini."

"Why?" asked Tanya.

"Why, what?" I questioned in reply, trying to play it off like I genuinely didn't know what she was talking about.

"Why did Andros tell you and not them? Or why didn't he tell all of us?"

"A couple of reasons," I answered, looking down for a moment and shaking my head slowly. "The reason he didn't tell all of you is because it isn't necessarily everybody's business. The only reason we're even talking about it now is because Jason, Zack, and Trini were comfortable sharing this information with you. As to why he told me first and not them? Andros and I already had a working relationship when he found out about all of this. I was the first one he came to when Zordon died, so coming to me first with this was just a natural progression."

Most of the other Rangers seemed okay with that explanation, but again, Kimberly's eyes met mine, this time with a look that told me I had not said nearly enough. Releasing yet another sigh, I looked down at my feet and muttered, "There's more to it than that though."

Raising my eyes to meet my teammates, I then began telling them of that fateful afternoon just over a year ago, when I had decided to drive to the outskirts of Angel Grove in the hopes of investigating the remains of the Command Center and Power Chamber.

Over the course of the next twenty minutes, I told them everything, stopping multiple times along the way to answer every single question that my teammates possibly could have come up with. The only thing I left out was my possession of the Zeonizers, which I didn't really see as necessary in the grand scheme of things. Fortunately for me, Kimberly did not send any looks my way to suggest that she felt otherwise.

Still, part of me was seriously regretting having just given her the pink Zeonizer like I had done. At the end of the day, it had not been mine to give away, and with Katherine sitting just feet away from me, I could not help but to feel an incredible sense of guilt over my actions. I had been so caught up in Kimberly that I had not even thought about Katherine in the slightest other than to temporarily justify what I was doing at that point in time.

Thankfully, before my guilt could consume my facial features and raise suspicion, I was granted a reprieve in the form of the doorbell ringing. I moved to answer it, but Kimberly, who was seated closest to the door, was almost there by the time I had taken three steps. I knew it was the Space Rangers on the other side even before Kimberly had opened the door, but that didn't make me any less grateful for their amazingly timely arrival.

"Hey guys," I called out to them as they stepped inside. "Great timing," I added, looking directly at Andros, who was carrying a large cardboard box that I ignored for the time being. "They've all agreed to go."

Though he looked slightly caught off guard, Andros quickly recovered. "That's excellent news," he said, setting the box aside and smiling brightly as he walked towards us. He briefly shook my hand, murmuring a thank you, and then moved beyond me. "Jason…Zack…Trini…" he continued, addressing each of them with an individual handshake, "Thank you so much for agreeing to do this. I can't tell you enough how thankful we — I mean, _I_ am to all of you."

Andros quickly shot me an apologetic look; having just arrived, he obviously did not know that I had already told them everything. Letting out a laugh, I shook my head and said, "Don't worry about it man. I just got done telling them about what we're doing."

"Oh," replied Andros, nodding while looking even more surprised than he had minutes ago. Again, though, he recovered almost immediately. "Well then that makes everything a whole lot easier. Zordon said we were going to need more help, but that I had to wait until you were willing to ask for it. I wasn't sure how long that was going to take…"

Now it was my turn to be surprised. And judging by the looks on the faces of each and every one of my teammates, I was not the only one experiencing that particular emotion. I knew better than to question these kinds of things, though. Zordon had always operated with a certain air of secrecy, something I had accepted long ago, and so when I did not question Andros on the issue any further, my teammates did not either.

"So what's in the box?" I asked instead, recovering almost as fast as Andros had.

"Ah," he said, looking back at the box for a moment. "Do you have a table I can set it on?"

"Yeah, in the dining room," I answered, nodding. "Should we all go?" I asked, not sure if the contents of the box were for everyone to see.

"Yes," said Andros with a nod of his own. "I have some things that were left to me that I need to give to you and your teammates."

Again, surprise consumed me and those that I had served with. This time, however, it was joined with profound anticipation. Every single one of us looked incredibly eager to see what had been left for us. I, of course, assumed whatever it was had been left by Zordon, and I imagined my teammates were thinking along those lines as well.

"Let's go then," I said, leading the way without another word.

Two minutes later, we were gathered around a table meant to seat twelve. Aside from Andros, after seeing how cramped things were the remaining members of the Space team decided to stand outside the oval of bodies for the time being.

Standing in the middle, with the box in front of him and everyone's eyes on him, Andros began opening the box, looking around slowly at all of us as he said, "Some of you have more in here than others. Zordon wanted me to make it perfectly clear that the objects he left to each of you are in no way a show of favoritism, merely necessity. Each of you has a destiny; aside from a few items Zordon had in his possession that he left for sentimental reasons, everything else is only that which he thought would help you in fulfilling those destinies. So please, if someone has three items and you have two, don't feel like Zordon cared about you any less, because that's not the case. Nearly everything you're being given here is for a reason."

By the time Andros stopped talking, he had the box open, but was keeping the flaps tucked in so no one could see what was inside. Once he was finished, though, he opened the box and reached inside, pulling out a shiny wooden box with dimensions I guessed to be around eight inches high and wide, and fourteen inches long. Upon further inspection, I noticed the box was tagged with a regular old handwritten Post-It note, leaving me to reason that Zordon had not marked these items himself.

"First, for Jason, Zack, and Trini," he announced, sliding the box towards the trio at the left end of the table.

Zack, who was standing in the middle, took the box and opened it without even looking at the others. Staring down into the box — the contents of which I could not see at the other end of the table — all three immediately looked confused.

"Our Morphers?" asked Jason, more to himself than anyone else as he removed the silver device and held it up to inspect it.

"What do we need these for?" questioned Trini, she and Zack doing the same thing as Jason with their Morphers. Of course, the openings in the center where their Power Coins should have been were empty on all three.

"Apparently Zordon was confident you'd be successful in recovering the lost coins," Andros answered, shrugging uncertainly. Then he looked around at all of us once more and said, "Just so you know, I haven't looked at any of these things. Alpha-6 told me what things went to what people and that's it."

"Wait, Alpha-6?" Kimberly interjected, she not being the only one looking puzzled. Billy, Jason, Zack, Aisha, and Trini all looked just as perplexed as she did.

"Yeah," I said, nodding, "Long story short, Alpha-5 went back to Eltar with Zordon, so Alpha-6 and Dimitria replaced them."

Those six looked particularly surprised to hear of this news, but Andros was speaking again before it could be discussed any further. "Right," he said, nodding in my direction. He then returned his attention to the box and retrieved another item; or rather, six items, each one exactly the same as the others. They were small parcels, wrapped in a blue material that made them look like garments shipped from an online store. And, like the box before, these were each marked with a Post-It note as well.

"Tommy," he announced, tossing the first package to me. Looking up, I caught it just in time as he went on, "Billy…Kimberly…Adam…Aisha…Rocky…"

Clutching the unopened packages tightly, the six of us began looking around at each other uncertainly. A moment later though — for me, at least — that changed as I realized who the other five people were. Smirking, I set the package down, pulled my key ring from my pocket, and carefully sliced the wrapping in half.

The second I saw white, I knew my suspicions had been correct.

Excitedly, I tore the remaining wrapping away and took in my hands my Ninja robes, holding them up with a look of disbelief. They were exactly as I remembered them, right down to the gold medallion emblazoned with the falcon in the center of the chest area. Grinning broadly, I set the robes back down in front of me and then looked to my teammates to find they were all in the middle of examining their own robes.

All of them except Kimberly, that is. Her robes were also on the table, lying right next to mine, but instead of seeming happy, she was staring at me blankly. "What's wrong?" I asked.

"What about Katherine?" she murmured.

It was then that I remembered there had been seven of us, not six. At once, I turned to look at Katherine. To almost anyone else, she would have appeared perfectly normal emotionally, but I could tell with just the briefest of gazes that the lack of a second set of pink robes had left her saddened. Compounded with the fact that I had already given her Zeonizers to Kimberly, I could not help but feel bad for Katherine.

Snapping my head around to face Andros, I quickly asked, "Are you sure there are only six of these in there?"

"What?" said Andros, who had been talking with Tanya on his left and had to turn around to look at me. "Oh, yes, yes, I'm sure," he went on, nodding. "Alpha made sure we had everything before we left NASADA. Why do you ask?"

"Kat should have a set of robes as well," Kimberly interjected firmly, her tone sounding rather irritated, which left me smirking slightly. Part of me had always loved watching her get fired up about something. It was just…_cute_. "When I left the team, she took my place and became the Pink Ninja Ranger. So there should be seven of these, not six."

"Right, but your spirit animals belonged to you as an individual," Andros replied calmly. "In the case of you and Katherine, she was merely borrowing your powers on a temporary basis. Katherine's spirit animal is not the crane, which is why those powers did not respond to her quite the way they did to you. Am I right, Katherine, in assuming you never really got used to being a Ninja Ranger?"

Suddenly on the spot, Katherine began looking around nervously for a moment, as though she wasn't really sure it was she that Andros had been speaking too. But then her eyes found Andros, she swallowed hard, nodded her head once, and said, "Yes, that's right. I—I watched my teammates doing things with their powers, but when I tried those same things, it always felt like something was holding me back. It wasn't until we made the switch to Zeo that I finally felt comfortable as a Ranger".

Once again, I was struck with an enormous pang of guilt. Hearing her express — for the first time, mind you — the same feeling that I had experienced in the switch from green to white only served to make me feel like a bigger jerk for giving her Zeonizer to Kimberly. Yes, I was sometimes known for making rash decisions, but never like this, not in a situation where I risked hurting someone I genuinely cared about; jumping back into things with Kimberly and hurting Katherine in the process notwithstanding, obviously. That had been a matter of the heart, not of foolish impulse.

"Thank you," said Andros, flashing Katherine a brief smile before continuing, "The reason Zordon did not leave robes for you, Katherine, is because he knew that you never truly felt at home as a Ninja Ranger. He did, however —" Andros paused, extracting another item from within the box, "— leave you this."

With that, Andros held up another long, thin box, sliding it across the table to Katherine who took it with shaking hands and lifted it up. This particular box was covered in white padding, making it look almost like a jewelry box. And when Katherine flipped the top open, her left hand flying to her mouth as a quiet gasp escaped her lips, she gave the stereotypical impression of a woman receiving jewelry, as well.

"Oh my goodness," she murmured, her hand going from her mouth to her heart as tears filled her eyes.

"What is it?" Adam called out softly from across the table, clearly at Tanya's request.

Smiling, Katherine set the box down on the table and gently removed a thin gold chain with some kind of gilded figurine attached to it. "It's a cat," she told us happily. "It's even got little pink jewels for eyes. Oh, and there's an inscription inside the box, too." Picking the box back up, she read, "'The only power you will ever need lies within yourself, but wear this necklace, and should you need protection, it will come to you.' I wonder what it does…"

The only thing I was wondering, though, was if Zordon had known all along that I was going to give Katherine's Zeonizer to Kimberly. Maybe it was just me looking for a way out of my current predicament, but those words — which I assumed to be Zordon's — made it sound like Katherine would not be needing her Zeonizer in the future. After all, Andros had already said that the items given to us would help us fulfill our individual destinies; perhaps Katherine's destiny did not include being an active Ranger again.

"Next is for all twelve of you," said Andros, bringing Katherine and those around her away from the necklace and back to the matter at hand. Again, he reached into the cardboard box, this time with both hands. He did this twice; both times he pulled out three smaller boxes in each hand that were about the size of the one he had just given to Katherine. The only difference was that these boxes were solid wood with no padding, and each was painted a different color; or, in some cases, a combination of colors.

One by one Andros began distributing the boxes. Solid black went to Zack; solid yellow went to Aisha, Tanya, and Trini; solid pink went to Katherine and Kimberly; and solid blue went to Billy and Justin. The remaining boxes were then given to Adam, black and green; Rocky, red and blue; Jason, red and gold; and myself, green, white, and red.

Opening mine at once, I found myself looking at another wrist communicator. This new one was much shinier than the one I had owned for the last six years, and the face was also different as well. Whereas before, the faces on all the communicators had been a dull shade of green, they were now encrusted with sparkling jewels of our individual Ranger colors.

As we all showed off our new communicators to each other, Andros went on, "Alpha-5 made these right before leaving for Eltar with Zordon. Unlike Billy's, these are not dependent on a space satellite; rather, like those worn by myself and the other Space Rangers, they are connected directly to the Morphing Grid."

Most of us, including myself, seemed impressed by this knowledge, but not Billy, who looked like he had just had his life's work proven wrong in one fell swoop. "But how is that possible?" he asked of Andros. "When I first built the communicators, Alpha and Zordon both tried connecting them to the Morphing Grid but were unsuccessful in doing so."

"That's because they didn't know how to at the time," Andros explained. "Like I told Tommy the other day, I've been doing this a lot longer than you might think. I'm not trying to brag, but my knowledge of the Morphing Grid is far deeper than Zordon's."

Surprise, which was quickly becoming a rather common and shared emotion amongst my teammates and me, once again took over. Zordon had always seemed like the ultimate source of knowledge to us, and now to hear Andros say that he actually knew more than Zordon? Well, it was startling to say the least.

"So you're saying that you did it?" questioned Billy.

"Not directly, no," said Andros, shaking his head while looking slightly uncomfortable. "I did, however, provide Alpha with the necessary technology to make it possible. Anyway," he added hastily, dipping back into the cardboard container to pull out yet another smaller box, this one much more square than the others, "this one's for you, Tanya."

"Me?" questioned Tanya uncertainly, her brow furrowed.

"Yes," said Andros with a smile, sliding the dark wooden box to his left.

At first glance, upon opening the box Tanya looked much the same as Katherine had upon opening hers. But where Katherine became tearful with emotion, Tanya's expression quickly became one of confusion. "It's beautiful," she murmured, holding the box at different angles to inspect its contents, "I've never seen anything like it though…"

"What is it, Tan?" asked Katherine, standing on the other side of the table facing Tanya.

"It's a wristband of some sort," said Tanya, setting the box down to remove the necklace. "It looks tribal to me, but nothing that I recognize." She then held up the wristband to the rest of us, allowing us to see the many different beads and stones — all different colors, shapes, and sizes — that had been used to make it.

"Oh wow," Andros breathed, staring at the necklace with narrowed eyes. "I — I think I might know where this came from."

"Really?" asked Tanya.

Again, Andros continued to surprise us.

"Yeah," he replied, nodding as he extended his hand, "Do you mind?"

"Not at all," said Tanya, shaking her head as she handed him the band.

For nearly two minutes, we watched Andros in silence as he inspected the wristband; every once in awhile, he would murmur something like "Hmm," or "Yeah," or "I think —" but that was the extent of things, until finally he looked over his shoulder at the other Space Rangers and said, "Zhane, come here for a second."

"What is it?" asked Zhane, once he had arrived at Andros' side a few seconds later. He, Karone, and the other Space Rangers had been lounging on couches in the living room, not really paying much attention to what was going on with us.

"Do you recognize this?" asked Andros, holding up the wristband for Zhane to see.

Staring curiously at it for a moment, Zhane then took the wristband, at which point we were subjected to another few minutes of barely sensible mutterings that in no way explained anything at all.

At this point, we were all struggling to hide our growing impatience, but then, finally, Zhane handed the wristband back to Andros and said, "Tarmak Nine?"

Andros merely nodded to Zhane, whose eyes went wide with shock as Andros returned the wristband to Tanya. "That band possesses great power, Tanya. It's made by the Wandenchi, a very peaceful yet equally powerful tribe of magical beings that have ruled over Tarmak Nine for nearly fifteen millennia now. My understanding is that it can sense when you need assistance, and will provide it to you in whatever form so long as you are wearing the band. For an outsider to have one of these is extremely rare…the Wandenchi bury their dead with all of their personal artifacts, and they never give magical treasures like this to non-Wandenchi. In fact, the only way an outsider could get one to begin with would be to kill a member of the tribe and take it."

Tanya looked horrified at that. "A-are you saying Zordon killed someone for this?"

"Oh, no, no," said Andros, shaking his head with a laugh as Zhane walked away. "I'm merely saying that's the only way it could enter the 'public,' so to speak. The problem with an object this powerful is that most people don't know how to keep their mouths shut when they have it. Someone kills a Wandenchi when they're alone, steals something like this, drunkenly brags to a bunch of people at a tavern that night, and ends up getting killed in his sleep for it. Unfortunately, it's a vicious and very repetitive cycle."

"Well then I guess I'll just have to be quiet about it," Tanya murmured, still looking unsure about the whole thing.

"Right," said Andros with a nod before returning his attention to the contents of the cardboard box. Speaking of repetitive cycles, he pulled out another smaller wooden box, this one a mahogany colored container roughly the size of a children's lunchbox. "Billy," he continued, extending the box to the man three to his right, "this is for you."

Looking around at the rest of us for a moment, Billy then turned to Andros and nodded as he took the box. Setting it down, Billy opened the box, peered inside, and immediately took a step back, his eyes as big as saucers. "Holy crap," he breathed.

For a moment, no one said anything, and then nearly all of us burst out laughing in unison. I think for all of us this marked the very first time that we had ever heard Billy revert to such primitive speech. Though Billy seemed to know why we were laughing, he merely shook his head and said, "No, I'm serious you guys. He left me Morphers."

Suddenly the laughter stopped.

"What?" I exclaimed blankly.

Billy nodded, dipped his hands into his box, and pulled out what looked to be a pair of Zeonizers exactly like those we had once used. Twelve sets of eyes stared back at him as he took the Morphers and carefully strapped them around his wrists, an immediate glow of silver light engulfing his hands.

"Impossible," muttered Andros, looking even more shocked than the rest of us.

"What's impossible?" asked Billy.

"The Silver Cimmerian Shard," Andros whispered, shaking his head. But none of us knew what he was talking about, and so we continued to stare at him expectantly, until he finally went on, "Up until this moment, I believed it to be a legend. The story went that the Zeo Crystal was created and made to work with five separate shards. But somewhere along the way, the five creators of the crystal each used a portion of their individual shards to empower a sixth shard that was left in the hottest volcano on the Cimmerian Planet, where only the most worthy of warriors would be able to retrieve it."

"So how did Zordon get it?" Jason questioned.

Again, Andros shook his head. "I have no idea."

"I — I haven't morphed in years," Billy muttered, staring down at his wrists in disbelief. He then looked to me and Andros to ask, "C-can I try them?"

Turning to Andros, I silently defaulted to him on this one. "I wouldn't recommend doing it in the house," he answered. "Legend has it that the sixth shard is even more powerful than the others. That large of a power expansion may do some serious damage."

"I'm going to go outside," Billy announced matter-of-factly.

But just as he had turned around, Andros said, "I still have one more thing for you, Billy," which caused Billy to freeze for a moment before returning to his spot between Trini and Rocky. With that, Andros began reaching into the box with both hands again, this time pulling out several VHS tapes — twelve in total — and stacking them up on the table in front of him.

"Zordon left a personal message to each of you," he went on, looking to all of us individually. "They were recorded using Eltarian technology, but since I knew none of you would have the necessary machines to play your recordings, Ashley and I transferred them to tapes for you. Now, before I pass them out, I have to say one thing; Zordon specifically requested that each recording only be viewed by the person it was intended for, so please respect that and don't share them with your teammates, regardless of how close you might be."

His eyes found mine for just a moment, and I knew at once that he was specifically referring to Kimberly and me. Smirking, I gave him a discreet nod and then waited as he passed out the tapes. As soon as Billy had been given his, he set it down on the table next to his blue Ninja Ranger robes and the box holding his communicator, and then raced out of the room faster than I had ever seen him move before.

Everything came to a halt at that moment as we all looked around at each other, seemingly asking one another in silence whether or not we should follow him. No one had to say a single word to answer that question, though. It took all of ten seconds before we were sprinting towards the back door in a mad dash pursuit of him.

By the time we made it to the porch, Billy was standing out on the lawn some fifty feet away from the house, his Zeonizers locked together in the standard "t" fashion. "Zeo Ranger Six, Silver!" he bellowed thunderously.

Instantly, silver energy burst from his body in every direction imaginable, so powerful that it nearly reached us all the way on the porch. When it finally dissipated, Billy was fully morphed in a uniform that was both very similar and very different to the ones I and the rest of the Zeo Rangers had worn.

In the places where our uniforms had showcased our individual colors, so too did Billy's. The gloves and boots were white with gold trim as well, but Billy had also been given a gilded shield that was shaped like the one I had worn as the Green Ranger. And, as he turned around to face us, I saw that his helmet visor was shaped like a diamond.

Eighteen people were standing on the porch staring at the new Silver Ranger, each as awestruck as the next, including myself. But I did not allow that awe to consume me. Instead, my mind was spinning as I thought back on the items everyone had received.

Jason, Zack, and Trini had all received Power Morphers that I assumed would work like normal once they had recovered the lost Power Coins. Katherine and Tanya had both been given some kind of magical jewelry that offered them protection, and now Billy had a Zeonizer. That left just me, Kimberly, Adam, Justin, Rocky, and Aisha. Two of us had Zeonizers already; two more had theirs unknowingly sitting in my basement, and Justin, as he had informed me on the walk up the mountain earlier, had found a spare Turbo Morpher in Storm Blaster's glove compartment. Only Aisha was left without something to protect her.

But then I remembered the third Zeonizer in my basement, the one I had been planning on offering back to Tanya. Now that she had this tribal wristband, however, I could not help but wonder if her Zeonizer was meant to go to someone else; specifically Aisha.

Deciding that I needed to take care of this sooner rather than later, I took Kimberly's hand and quietly led her back into the house, pressing a single finger to my lip when she first looked at me. Luckily, no one seemed to notice our disappearance, and once inside the house, I said, "Come on, let's go in my room for a second."

"What's going on?" asked Kimberly as I pulled her along down the hallway.

"I need to talk to you about something," I replied, motioning for her to take a seat on the bed once we had entered the room. Closing and locking the door behind me as she did so, I then walked over to her, sat down beside her, and put my arm around her shoulder, pulling her in close. "I messed up, Beautiful," I admitted in a near whisper, pressing my brow against the side of her head.

Pulling back slightly, she looked up at me with a confused expression and said, "What are you talking about, Tommy?"

Sighing, I released my hold on her, stood up, and began to pace around back and forth in front of the bed. As I did this, I tried to formulate what I wanted to say into something that would help Kimberly understand my position while not hurting her feelings. When I finally felt like I had it, I stopped and turned around to face her.

"I meant every word I said to you when I gave you those Zeonizers," I began, locking eyes with her. "But, at the end of the day, they weren't mine to give away. They were Kat's, and I made a mistake in giving them to you without talking to her first."

Appearing slightly disappointed, she questioned, "Are you asking me to give them back?"

With another sigh, I nodded and said, "Yes…but only temporarily. If I'm not completely off base in my theory, Zordon intended for you and Aisha to have Kat and Tanya's Zeonizers." Seeing her confusion once more, I then began explaining my logic, how everyone would each have one source of power/protection if she and Aisha had the Zeonizers and I returned the remaining two to Adam and Rocky.

"So, let me see if I'm understanding this, you're going to take back the Zeonizers you gave me, make it seem like you never gave them to me in the first place, and then try to convince Kat and Tanya that they should give them to me and Aisha?" Kimberly questioned, her brow furrowed.

"Yeah, that about sums it up," I answered, nodding before sitting back down next to her. "I can't make you give them back, but I can't guarantee how Kat will react if I have to tell her I gave them to you without asking her first. Granted, that's my problem for creating this situation in the first place, and I'm prepared to deal with the consequences of it if I have to, but I'm almost positive I can convince her that you need them, and in turn probably prevent another fiasco like the one we had last night."

"Yeah," murmured Kimberly, nodding as well. Then, without another word, she got up and walked over to the nightstand on the other side of the bed, opened it, and took out her Zeonizers. Carrying them over to where I sat, she extended them to me and said, "Here…I hope you're right about this, Tommy."

"Me too, Kim," I replied softly as I took the Zeonizers from her, "Me too."


	9. When One Door Opens

_**Title: The Hexagon**_

_**Chapter Eight — "When One Door Closes…"**_

_**Original Posting Date: April 18, 2010**_

--

Silently, we made our way out of my bedroom and into the hallway. We didn't speak a word to each other until we had reached the linen closet, at which point I took hold of Kimberly's wrist and pulled her against the wall with me. As she stared up at me, I moved my grip to her hand, looked her in the eyes, and murmured, "You have no idea how sorry I am for this, Kim. I — I feel terrible, I really do."

Kimberly stared back at me in silence for a few moments, then finally sighed and nodded. "I'm not mad, Tommy. I'm just — I don't know…I was really starting to like the idea of you and me on the same team again."

Flashing a smile, I brought her hand to my lips and kissed it once. "We're always going to be on the same team, Beautiful."

That earned me a smile. "I don't want to sound selfish, but promise me you'll try your hardest to convince Kat…"

"You know I will," I replied, nodding. I then held up the Zeonizers and asked, "Can you keep them busy while I put these with the rest of them

"Yeah," said Kimberly with another nod. "Do you want me to shut the closet door behind you?"

"Sure," I answered as I walked the remaining few feet to the door and pulled it open.

All in all, it only took me about three minutes to return the Zeonizers to the box in the safe, which I then carried back upstairs with me, hiding it under my desk in the den once I had returned the TV box to its usual spot covering the trap door.

Sitting down in my leather office chair, I allowed myself a few quiet minutes to organize my thoughts and form a plan of attack, so to speak. Unfortunately, I could only see one direction to take in regards to Katherine and Tanya; the blunt truth, which — I was fairly certain — would probably end up seriously hurting the feelings of at least one of the two.

Standing back up, I let out a sigh and headed back into the living room. Some of the Rangers were in the kitchen and others had taken up seats around the living room television, but I didn't even bother to see what program they were watching. Finding Adam and Rocky standing side-by-side in the kitchen with Tanya and Aisha across from them, I walked up behind the two women, put a hand on each of their shoulders, and laughingly said, "Mind if I steal these two clowns for a minute?"

The two ladies smirked at each other for a second, followed by Aisha shrugging as she replied, "Eh, I'm done with mine for a while. What about you, Tan?"

"Yeah, I guess you can have him," Tanya said to me with a grin.

"We're right here, you know," Rocky interjected. "We can hear what you're saying."

Aisha rolled her eyes. "Yeah, Rocky, we didn't know that," she said, shaking her head. "Take him, Tommy. Take him far, far away and leave him there."

"Oh no, this is five minutes tops," I said with a laugh. "Sorry, 'Sha, but he's all yours. I have enough head-cases to worry about already."

"Are you guys just going to stand there and make fun of us the whole time we're here?" questioned Adam, sounding slightly irritated, but I knew it was nothing serious. I had known Adam long enough to recognize when he was really mad about something, which didn't happen very often.

Chuckling, I held up my hands and said, "Alright, alright, I'm done. I just need to talk to you guys for a minute. Follow me."

And with that, I made my way to the other side of the kitchen, out the swinging door, and into the hallway with Adam and Rocky right behind me. They said nothing on the way to the den, nor did they question me when I led them inside and motioned for them to take seats on the couch against the wall.

As I took my chair, however, Rocky asked, "So what's going on?"

"I, uh…I have something for you guys," I answered, looking between the pair, "Something Zordon left in my care."

"What is it?" questioned Adam curiously.

Smiling, I reached under my desk, grabbed the wooden box, and then rolled my chair across the hardwood floor to where they sat with one strong push. "You guys ready for this?" I asked, trying to make my tone sound as suspenseful as possible. Looking to each other, and then me, both men nodded eagerly. With a smirk, I said, "Alright then," and proceeded to open the box, my smirk growing bigger as their eyes went wide.

"No way," murmured Adam.

"How —?" asked Rocky in a near whisper.

"They were with all the stuff Zordon left for me," I explained, snapping the box shut when Rocky started reaching for his Zeonizers. He looked at me with a twisted expression, but I quickly went on, "There's something I have to tell you before I can return these to you."

"What?" Rocky asked, somewhat demandingly.

"Part of the work that I'm doing here is going to involve monitoring the planet for any future disturbances of the evil villain variety," I said, both men nodding as I went on, "So, if you take your Zeonizers, something happens, and a new team of Rangers doesn't arrive, you understand what that means, right?"

"No, we don't," said Rocky, shaking his head, the sarcasm evident in his tone.

Adam, however, seemed to be a bit more empathetic to the situation that I was in. Shooting Rocky a look that very plainly told him to shut up, Adam then turned to me and said, "We understand, Tommy. We're in the same boat you are, man…neither one of us ever wanted to leave either."

I couldn't help but smile at that, though I did my best to keep it unnoticeable. "Okay then," I said, reopening the box, "They're yours."

"Sweet!" exclaimed Rocky, grabbing his excitedly.

Shaking his head for a moment, Adam then reached out and took his as well. "They work and everything? I mean, you've tested them."

"I tested mine and it worked fine," I replied, intentionally leaving out the fact that Katherine's had worked as well, only not for her. "You guys are more than welcome to try them if you want…I tried mine inside and nothing broke."

Grinning at each other as they pushed their sleeves back and strapped their Zeonizers on, the pair stood up and immediately spread to a comfortable distance apart while I wheeled back to my desk. "You remember how to do this, buddy?" Rocky said to Adam, leaving me grinning as well.

Rolling his eyes, Adam replied, "Just shut up and morph."

Smirking, Rocky muttered, "My pleasure," and then thrust his arms forward as Adam did the same alongside him.

"It's Morphin' Time!" they shouted in unison, moving through the familiar arm motions before locking their Zeonizers together.

"Zeo Ranger Three, Blue!" yelled Rocky, his body immediately becoming enveloped in vibrant blue light.

"Zeo Ranger Four, Green!" followed Adam, a green glow as bright as Rocky's accompanying his call.

Forced to shield my eyes up close, I waited until the multi-colored light disappeared before lowering my arm, at which point I simply sat and watched for a few moments as Adam and Rocky went through the old routine of inspecting themselves.

"Awesome!" exclaimed Adam, slapping hands with Rocky.

"You got that right," said Rocky, nodding. Then, forming his arms into an X in front of his face, he murmured, "Power down." A moment later, Adam had done the same, both of them wearing broad smiles when their uniforms and helmets were gone.

But then Adam's smile suddenly disappeared as he turned to face me. "What about the other two?" he asked.

His question was even enough to shake Rocky from his grinning stupor. Looking around at me as well, he said, "Yeah, what about Kat and Tanya?"

I had honestly hoped they would have been happy enough with having their Morphers again not to raise this particular question. Caught off guard, I let out a sigh and said, "I'm going to talk to them right now. You guys are free to head back out there now, but please, for me, don't say anything to the others until I've talked to Kat and Tanya."

I emphasized the "for me" part as much as I could, thankful when neither man questioned or argued my request. Together, we made our way back to the rest of the Rangers, and three minutes later I was leading two more back to my den.

The beginning of my conversation with Katherine and Tanya went much the same as the one with Adam and Rocky. Both women were equally surprised and excited to see their old Morphers, which made it even harder when I set the box aside, looking back and forth between them with the most serious expression I could muster.

It was no surprise to me that Katherine, having known me as long and as well as she had, quickly asked, "What's wrong, Tommy?" Continuing to stare between them, I opened my mouth to reply, but ended up closing it just as quickly. I then stood up and began pacing the area in front of them, my heart thudding rapidly against my chest as I did so. "Tommy, what is going on?" she questioned, this time with obvious urgency in her tone.

Forcing myself to stop in front of the couch where they sat, I sighed and then turned around to face them. "There's no easy way for me to say this, so I'm just going to come right out with it," I told them as I returned to my seat. "Assuming Jason, Zack, and Trini are able to recover the lost Power Coins, almost all of us will have some kind of active power source. You two have what Zordon left you, those three will have their coins, Justin has his Turbo Morpher, Billy has his new Morphers, and Adam, Rocky, and I have our Zeonizers; which leaves only two people…"

"Kimberly —" murmured Katherine, giving me a look that made me wonder if she already knew what it was that I was going to suggest.

"— and Aisha," added Tanya, although she and Katherine did not seem to be on the same page as far as what I was doing was concerned.

"Exactly," I replied softly, nodding. "Now, try to think about what I'm going to say here from my perspective; Zordon left you both powerful objects that can offer you protection if you're ever in a situation that calls for it. Aisha and Kim, on the other hand —"

Tanya seemed to catch on at that point. "Are you asking us to give our Morphers to Kim and 'Sha?" she questioned.

"I can't make you do it," I said in a near whisper, shaking my head. "At the end of the day, these Morphers are rightfully yours, and if you want them, you can have them. But before you make that decision, I only want you to consider one thing; you're both great Rangers — and even better people — but neither one of you would be here right now…neither one of you would be a part of this family, if it wasn't for Aisha and Kimberly, the only two powerless Rangers in this house."

For quite some time, Katherine and Tanya merely stared at each other in silence. Being as close as the two of them were, I imagined that they were probably as close to fluent in speechless communication as Jason and I; definitely not as fluent as me and Kimberly though. Finally, they smiled softly at each other, almost in a resigned, slightly saddened sort of way.

Katherine was the first to look back at me, wearing the same smile as she quietly asked for her Zeonizers. Fearing the worst, I swallowed the lump in my throat, grabbed the box from the floor, and opened it back up for her. Without a word, both she and Tanya took their Zeonizers, stood up, and started back towards the door.

"Where are you going?" I questioned hesitantly.

Again, it was Katherine who was the first to stop and look my way. "If Kimberly's going to have these, I'm at least going to be the one to give them to her."

Tanya added a brief smile, nodding once before she and Katherine exited the den, but I was far too dumbfounded to do anything more than sit there with my mouth open for quite some time. Eventually, though, I was able to snap myself out of my stupor, at which point I hopped onto my feet and raced into the living room, sliding to a stop just short of the entryway.

Katherine and Kimberly were standing near the back door together, Kimberly staring up at Katherine with a shocked and teary-eyed expression as Katherine pressed the Zeonizers into her hands. Smiling, I looked away to find Aisha and Tanya sitting next to each other on one of the couches. Tanya, too, was pressing her Zeonizers into Aisha's hands, Aisha looking as confused as Kimberly was shocked. Assorted Rangers were gathered around them as this was happening, all of them apparently eager to find out what was going on.

Letting out a deep sigh of relief, I raised my eyes to the ceiling and murmured, "Thank you."

"What's going on in here?" a voice said from behind me.

Whirling around to find Andros standing there, I replied, "See for yourself," and then motioned towards the living room.

Stepping to my side, Andros began looking around, first at the interaction between Aisha and Tanya, and then Katherine and Kimberly. After a few more looks back and forth between the two pairs, realization crossed his face, followed by a shrug of his shoulders as he said, "Yeah, I had a feeling that this was going to happen."

Furrowing my brow in surprise, I said, "You did?"

"Yes, I did," said Andros, nodding "Why else would Zordon have left such powerful objects to Katherine and Tanya, and nothing at all to Aisha and Kimberly?"

Chuckling, I shook my head and said, "My thoughts exactly, man."

"Yeah," said Andros with a laugh. Then, after a few moments of silence, he went on, "We should probably get started on our work as soon as possible."

"Yeah, I agree," I replied, nodding.

"I also think we should enlist some help," he continued, earning my full attention with that. "Everyone knows what's going on now and, like you mentioned last night, do you really think Billy being deported from Aquitar at this exact time was a coincidence?"

"Not even for a second," I answered, shaking my head.

"Exactly," said Andros. "Zordon and I worked closely for a long time, but we never worked the same way. When it comes to a lot of the technology he used, equipment and machines, things of that nature…Billy would probably be a bigger help to you than me."

"Yeah, I think I'll talk to him," I said with a nod. "But there's something else I want to talk to you about since you brought it up. For the last couple of days I've been getting the feeling that you and Zordon were a lot closer than you let on. If you don't mind me asking, what was your relationship with him?"

Andros sighed, looking at me with an uncomfortable expression. "It's…complicated —" he trailed off, turning away as he went on, "Come on; let's go outside. Zhane's the only one I have ever told this story too and I don't want everyone else overhearing it."

I simply nodded my head and said "Okay," then followed Andros back through the family room and out the front door.

Once we were outside, we continued to the dirt road at the end of my driveway, made a left turn, and started walking towards town. It was then that he finally went on, "The first time that I met Zordon was about thirteen years ago. On KO-35, my home planet, children have their career paths chosen for them at a very early age; I was eight when I was selected for Ranger training. After five years of excelling in the academy, I was finally made a Ranger when a member of the team was killed in action; I was black, at first. It was only a few months after that when the rest of my team and I were sent here, to the Milky Way Galaxy, to inspect some kind of powerful disturbance near Mercury.

"We went into hyperspace at Neptune, but we encountered an asteroid field in between Mars and Earth, so we had to pull out and navigate manually through the field. Unfortunately, we weren't in a ship anywhere near as sophisticated as the Megaship and couldn't detect any activity outside the asteroid field. We had no idea until we made it out that a Verexian cruiser was waiting on the other side."

"Sorry to interrupt," I said, "But a Verexian?"

"Yeah," said Andros, nodding, "Eternal enemies of my people, the Kerovians. They recognized our ship and opened fire on us before we had time to even realize they were there. Fortunately, Earth was pretty close and we were able to redirect the ship towards it, but just as we were entering the planet's atmosphere, they landed a direct hit on us with some kind of giant laser. We lost control of the ship and ended up crashing in the middle of Antarctica."

"How did this not make every news channel in the world?" I questioned in disbelief. "Wouldn't NASA and places like that have detected you on radar?"

"NASA is about as sophisticated as Darkin-7, Tommy," said Andros, laughing at what I assumed was a joke that had gone right over my head. "No one knew we were there, our ship was in pieces, and we had no way to communicate with our people back home. Aside from trying not to die in the freezing cold, we spent every waking moment trying to reestablish communications with KO-35. It took four days for the first of us, our Blue Ranger, Seygan, to die. One by one, everyone started dying over the course of the next few days, until it was only me and our leader, the Red Ranger Jaren.

"He was already on the verge of dying, and I wasn't too far off when I was finally able to send out a distress signal. It wasn't nearly enough to reach KO-35, but it got to Angel Grove. One moment Jaren and I were sitting in the snow, and the next we were in the Command Center, being tended to by Alpha-5 while Zordon looked down at us. I had no idea who either of them were, but I was suddenly warm and far too tired to even think about resisting. I — I don't remember much about the next couple of days — mostly because I slept for almost two days straight — only that, when I woke up, Jaren had died."

"Damn," I murmured, unable to even make an attempt at comprehending how devastating it must have been to lose his whole team. Though as people, every single one of us was different in our own right, there was a certain predisposition that each of us shared as Rangers; a sense of self-sacrifice, where any of us would give gladly our own life in a second to save those of others, especially our teammates. Just from looking into Andros' eyes as he spoke, I could tell the loss of his old team was something he was still struggling with to this day.

"It gets worse, if you can believe it," he said with an awkward chuckle. "The last time I had seen Jaren, he was alive, and then suddenly I wake up and he's dead…I didn't think about the likelihood that he had died from ten days in the bitter cold with nothing to eat or drink, and instead, I lashed out at Zordon and Alpha. I accused them of killing Jaren and tore up half the Command Center before Alpha was able to inject me with a sedative. When I came around a few hours later, I was strapped to a chair facing Zordon's energy tube. For awhile, I pretended to still be asleep and simply listened to he and Alpha talking.

"I overheard them saying things like Jaren had died from hypothermia, that my teammate's bodies had already been returned to KO-35, and that Zordon had given my government a full report stating that I had done everything I could to help my teammates. Hearing him say these things made me feel like such a jerk for losing my temper like I had done earlier. I apologized for my behavior, Zordon and Alpha accepted and understood, and that was how we first came to know each other."

At that point, Andros stopped talking and walking for a moment, leaving me a good ten or fifteen feet ahead of him before I realized he was no longer at my side. Stopping, I turned around to find him standing with his back to me. Jogging over to where he stood, I said, "What's up man?"

"Nothing," he replied, shaking his head, "I just figured this was a good place to turn back. I should be done by the time we make it back to your house."

"Oh," I said, nodding. "Okay then."

With that, we started back down the road to my house.

"So, I ended up staying in the Command Center a few more days until I had fully recovered," Andros continued. "Zordon wanted Alpha to run some more tests on me, and even though I felt fine, I was just grateful to still be alive and wasn't going to argue something like that with the ones who had saved my life. Over the next few days, we all got to know each other better while Alpha ran his tests, and we stayed in contact after I had gone back to KO-35. Because I was the only surviving member of my team, I now had rank, was made the Red Ranger, and was told that I should pick a new team from those still in the academy. But after losing five teammates — the five people that I thought were the best for the job — no one else was ever good enough in my eyes. No one else except Zhane, that is. We had gone into the academy at the same time and shared living quarters up until the time I was promoted to the team. He was my best friend and the only person I trusted. Up until recently, when I gave the remaining Astro Morphers to the current team, there were only two of us. My government didn't really approve, but when it comes to the Rangers on KO-35, no one's authority supersedes that of the Red Ranger.

"Anyway, it wasn't long after that when Zordon and I began really discussing Ranger technology. He had five of the six Power Coins, I knew that much already, but he didn't really understand the inner workings of the Morphing Grid, which is part of what they taught us in the academy. The thing with Zordon, and I hate to even say it because I know how much you all care about him, but he wasn't the most knowledgeable person, he just seemed like it to you guys because you didn't know any better. He was a great wizard, there's no doubt about that, but when it came to the Ranger world, he was incredibly shortsighted."

"What do you mean?" I asked with a twisted expression, feeling very much like someone had just punched me in the stomach.

"Using the Power Coins, for one," he replied. "They're powerful, yeah, but they're also very easy to destroy. You know that first hand. There were a number of times over the next decade or so where I tried to convince him that depending solely on the Power Coins was too risky, but he didn't listen to me. I'm not trying to make myself seem like some all-knowing person, because I'm not, but I know the Ranger world better than anyone. The Morphing Grid is a constant stream of energy that surrounds us; it's responsible for life, death, everything. With enough education and training, you can learn to read the ebbs and flows of the Morphing Grid and use that to determine what's going to happen in the future. It's never one-hundred percent reliable — far from it, in fact, since personal choice leaves the Grid in a constant state of change — but it _can_ give you a general idea of what could happen if you know how to read it properly.

"Zordon didn't care to learn until it was too late, though, despite me offering to teach him as often as I tried to convince him to search for other power sources beyond the coins. When he chose his new team six years ago, I watched from KO-35, knowing it was only a matter of time before the weaknesses in the Power Coins were exposed. And when that happened, I was the first person he went to, just like I was the first person he went to when the Dino Zords were destroyed and he needed help converting them into the Thunder Zords. When Rito eliminated your powers, Zordon came to me again. Every major player in the universe had heard stories of Ninjor, but none of us knew if he was real, so I reminded Zordon of the Zeo Crystal and suggested sending you guys after it. Again, he didn't listen to me."

"Yeah, but it worked out in the end," I interjected defensively. I hated hearing Zordon spoken about in a negative light, even if what Andros was telling me was the truth.

"Did it really?" he countered, eyeing me questioningly. "Let's be honest; the Ninja Coins were about as reliable as the original Power Coins. Goldar and Rito destroyed those powers with no more than a small explosive. The Zeo Crystal, on the other hand, is practically indestructible when fully assembled and energized. Trust me, Tommy, Zordon was a good friend and I care about him a great deal, but he was also hardheaded and very much set in his own ways. When he decided to send you in search of Ninjor's Temple instead of the Zeo Crystal, it was the last straw for me. I told him we would always be friends in my eyes, but that I couldn't keep trying to help him when he never bothered with listening to anything I had to say.

"Still, I don't think he really cared at that point. Like I said, he was very shortsighted. You guys had new powers and that was all that mattered to him. It was lucky for him that I had mentioned the Zeo Crystal in the past, otherwise you guys would have had no hope at all of finding a new power source when Master Vile turned you back into kids; which, by the way, he would not have been able to do if Zordon had just sent you after the Zeo Crystal in the first place. The fully-assembled Zeo Crystal emits such a strong magnetic field that the planet would have been impervious to the Orb of Doom. But, as you already know, Zordon didn't listen to me. It wasn't until he got back to Eltar that things finally started to change."

"What happened?" I asked. Suddenly I was feeling like a little kid who had just found out that the Tooth Fairy wasn't real.

Andros sighed. "By the time he left for Eltar, it had been just over two years since we had spoken. At that point, I honestly wasn't even sure if we would ever say another word to each other for the rest of our lives. But he ended up contacting me shortly after arriving back home. He was very somber, nothing like I had ever seen or heard from him before. He admitted that he was wrong, apologized for not listening to me, and asked me to teach him how to read the Morphing Grid. At first, I didn't know what to think or say; but, at the end of the day, Zordon was my friend, so I forgave him and agreed to help him. He caught on pretty fast, too. By then, I had been teaching kids in the academy to read the grid for nearly twelve years, and I had never seen anyone catch on as fast as Zordon did. My only wish was that he would have started learning earlier. With his natural ability, and the kind of understanding of the grid that can only be achieved with years of practice, I'm almost positive that his death could have been avoided. Then again, not even I saw it coming so —"

As if hearing everything else had not been bad enough, that last part was enough to instantly make me feel queasy. Moments later, my stomach gave a powerful lurch that actually forced me to stop walking, cover my mouth, and turn away. Thankfully, my stomach settled fairly quickly, and with my hands folded behind my head, I looked to the sky with tears in my eyes.

How was it possible that almost everything I had ever thought about Zordon was a giant sham? I had spent the last six years of my life believing him to have always been this incredible, all-knowing being; hearing that that was not the case left me with very mixed feelings.

In some ways, it was disappointing. In other ways, it was refreshing; particularly when it came to me being appointed leader upon my return as the White Ranger. In that case, it meant that Zordon had chosen me not because he had foreseen Jason's impending departure as I had always thought, but because he had genuinely believed that I was the best person for the job. Still, the sense of disappointment was very much real.

"I can imagine how you must be feeling," Andros murmured from behind me.

Slowly turning around, I looked him in the eyes — uncaring to the fact that mine were filled with tears — and tried not to sound bitter as I countered, "Can you? Can you imagine what it's like finding out that practically everything you thought about a person for almost six years is a lie?"

"What are you talking about, Tommy?" he replied. "Practically everything you thought about Zordon was true. He was extremely powerful, extremely intelligent, and he cared about you and the Rangers just as much, if not more, than his own family. His only real fault was that he was so smart he couldn't accept someone else having a better idea than him."

"It's not that simple —" I began, but before I could finish, Andros was cutting me off.

"Yes, it is, Tommy. It's that simple," he said firmly. "You didn't just believe in Zordon; Zordon believed in you as well. I believe in him too, that's why I'm here trying to help you. But if you don't believe in him in any longer then the Phantom Ranger was right…you shouldn't be the one to carry out his legacy."

In an instant, the sickness I had felt was gone, and suddenly I found myself seething. I had no idea who this Phantom Ranger was, but I now had the supreme urge to do whatever was necessary to prove him wrong.

"Who's the Phantom Ranger?" I demanded through gritted teeth.

"An ally," answered Andros, pausing for a moment before adding, "Or, rather, he used to be an ally. He helped the second team of Turbo Rangers — and later, me and the Space Rangers — quite a few times, and when Zordon was captured, the Phantom Ranger went looking for him. He definitely hasn't been your biggest supporter though."

Furrowing my brow, I said, "Why? What does he have against me?"

"You mean besides the fact that Zordon cared about you more than his own son?" Andros replied unflinchingly.

For a few moments, I tried to convince myself that I had heard him wrong, even though I knew that I hadn't. "H-he had a son?" I questioned hesitantly, unable to believe that Zordon had never told any of us this.

"Yes," said Andros, nodding. "Zordon's wife, Amilee, gave birth to Zarken shortly after Zordon had been imprisoned by Rita. Unfortunately, Amilee died in the birthing process, and since Zordon obviously couldn't take care of him, Zarken was sent to live in an Eltarian orphanage, though that's not nearly as bad as you might think; orphanages on Eltar are like five-star hotels on Earth. Still, Zarken spent the first decade or so of his life not knowing who his parents were."

Being adopted, this was a situation that I felt myself immediately relating to despite the surprise I was experiencing from the story.

"It wasn't until Zarken was fourteen that Zordon first established contact with him," Andros went on. "By that time, Zordon had commissioned the first in the Alpha Series from King Lexian, and they were temporarily living on Edenoi while the Edonites built the Command Center on Earth. Zordon told Zarken everything and begged his son to forgive him but, feeling like Zordon had abandoned him, Zarken rejected him at first. Actually, he rejected him for quite a long time. If not for Zordon being trapped in an energy tube, and Zarken nearly dying while fighting for the Eltarian military, they both would have died without reconciling.

"And not because nearly dying made Zarken realize he wanted to know his father, either. It took another seven-thousand years before they finally made amends. Even then, though, they were never particularly close. But in the explosion that nearly killed him, Zarken's body was destroyed so badly that the only way for him to live on was in a robotic suit powered by a rare ruby. If he goes without the ruby too long, he'll die, but he'll live forever so long as he has it."

"I can't believe Zordon never told us about this," I murmured, shaking my head.

"Don't worry about it, he never told me either," said Andros. "I was able to track Phantom down a few days after I came here to tell you about Zordon, and he was the one who told me about all of this."

"So how does any of this translate into Zordon caring more about me than him?"

"Like I said, Tommy, they were never particularly close. You knew Zordon for six years; they knew each other for almost ten-thousand and Zordon never once showed him nearly as much attention or affection as he did to you."

"But that's not my fault," I countered defensively. In no way did I think this Phantom Ranger had any right to be mad at me for something I had absolutely no control over.

"I'm not saying that it is," Andros replied, "But if Zordon trusted you enough to put his life's work in your hands, shouldn't that be all the reassurance you need?"

I could do little more than sigh that. "Yeah," I said, nodding, "You're right."

"I know I am," said Andros, smiling. "So we're on the same page then?"

"Yeah," I said, nodding again.

"Good," said Andros, clasping my shoulder briefly. "You ready to go back?"

"There's one more thing," I answered. "I'm thinking that we should keep this little conversation between you and me. I don't know if telling the others what you told me about Zordon is the right thing to do at this point."

"I think that's probably a good idea," he agreed with a nod.

That settled, we continued on. We were only a few minutes away from my house, and neither one of us said much of anything the rest of the way there. Honestly, after everything I had just heard, I still didn't really know what to say, and I imagined Andros felt like he had said enough to last quite awhile. Still, he was the one to break the silence as we reached my driveway.

"What time are you taking Kimberly to the airport tomorrow?" he asked, stopping near the back of Adam's black Mustang.

"Her flight leaves at three out of Los Angeles," I answered, leaning against the trunk, "So we'll probably leave here around noon. Why? Did you want to get started tomorrow?"

"I think we should, yeah," said Andros with a nod. "The sooner we get started, the better. It shouldn't take more than a day or two to install a full range of computer and detection systems in your basement, but we definitely want those in place before Jason, Zack, and Trini go after the lost Power Coins."

This raised even more questions in my head — specifically what it was exactly that they needed to do and how they were supposed to do it — but I decided to hold off on asking them for the time being, reasoning that I would have plenty of time to talk with him about it over the next couple of days.

In agreement with Andros, we headed back into the house shortly after that, where I was surprised to find that no one seemed to have missed us at all. Some of the Rangers were playing cards at the dining room table, others were watching a basketball game on TV, and a few were even playing _"Sorry!"_ on the coffee table; the one thing they all had in common, though, was that they were all eating.

Seeing as how Kimberly was the only one in the kitchen, I figured she must have taken it upon herself to start preparing some of the things that we had purchased at Costco yesterday morning. She had not yet noticed me though, so I left Andros with the others and walked back around to the kitchen's hallway entrance.

She was checking something in the oven as I crept up behind her, simultaneously noting all of the empty containers on the counter: five bags of salad and three bottles of dressing; four long paper sleeves that had held French bread; and two family-sized, once frozen, plastic dishes. From the looks of them, one had been lasagna; the other, chicken fettuccine.

Once she was no longer hunched over the oven and the door was safely closed, I wrapped my arms around her waist, resting my chin atop her shoulder. "What's cookin', Beautiful?" I whispered in her ear.

"Chicken parmesan and ravioli," she replied, flashing me a brief smile before stealing a kiss. "Where'd you run off to anyway?"

"Andros needed to talk to me about some things," I answered, nuzzling the nape of her neck with the tip of my nose.

She let out a soft giggle and playfully pushed herself out of my arms. Then she walked right back to me with a wide grin and we shared a very long, drawn out kiss.

"Everything okay?" she asked, once we had broken apart, her hands resting flat on my chest.

"Yeah, everything's fine," I said with a smile and a nod. Then I took her chin with my forefinger, tilted her head up, and kissed her one last time. "I love you, Beautiful."

Beaming up at me, she murmured, "I love you too, Tommy," just as the oven began to beep.

"Yeah, more food!" yelled Rocky excitedly from the living room.

"Eaaaasy, Rocky!" shouted Aisha from the dining room. "Some of us have only had salad and bread so far thanks to you!"

"And some of us haven't eaten at all!" Kimberly called out, rolling her eyes.

That seemed to silence everyone, leaving me smirking at Kimberly from behind as she moved to take the food out of the oven. She had pulled the door down, and was just about to reach in when I said, "Hey, Kim?" Stopping, she looked back at me to see that I was holding the oven mitts in my hands, "You _might_ wanna slip these on."

"Holy crap, I'm an idiot," she muttered, shaking her head as she reached out for the mitts.

I merely smiled back at her as I handed them over.

The rest of the night was far more relaxing than the one before it, and with most of the Rangers having to catch flights tomorrow, everyone ended up leaving fairly early. As we said our goodbyes, some plans were firmed up, like Andros coming over tomorrow evening. I had also been able to convince Billy into coming as well; both of them would be staying in the guest rooms for at least a few days. And while I wished I could have told Jason, Zack, and Trini more about what was to come, the best I could say to them was that I would let them know as soon as I had more information. It was not ideal for any of us, but again, it was the best that I could do at that time.

I guess they could have just asked Andros themselves if they had really wanted to, but for some reason, they never did. Maybe they were just more comfortable going through me…

As it were, soon after everyone had left, I was wishing they were still here. Once Kimberly and I had finished cleaning up, I was forced to watch as she began to pack all but that which was absolutely necessary for the morning, only speaking occasionally since just being in the room while she was packing was so damn hard.

Seeing as how she had only come with her backpack, she had gone on a bit of a shopping spree one day earlier in the week while I was at school and was now using a duffel bag that I had offered to her instead.

Sitting in the soft chair in the corner of my room, watching as she packed away garment after garment…suddenly it felt like high school all over again. In my mind, I wasn't in my room; I was in her room at Aisha's house in Angel Grove, sitting in a bean bag chair and watching her while she packed her things for Florida.

Still, just like last time, I was watching her get ready to leave with nothing but positive thoughts for what the future held when it came to us. That didn't stop me from getting a little emotional, though, thinking about the fact that tomorrow was the last time I was going to be seeing her for God knows how long.

In an instant, I decided I was going to change that; or at least try my hardest to. When we laid down to go to sleep a little bit later that night — after we had, ahem, "expressed our love for each other" — I pulled her in close, with my arm draped around her waist and my nose nuzzling the back of her head as I quietly asked, "Do you have plans for Christmas?"

Kimberly's initial reply was no more than a quiet sigh.

"Beautiful?" I questioned in a near whisper.

"No, I don't," she answered softly, an audible hint of sadness in her tone.

Obviously, my plan was to have her spend Christmas with me, but hearing her tone made me switch gears for the time being. "What's wrong?" I asked, gently running my fingers up and down her back.

"Nothing, it's just —" she trailed off, pausing for a few moments before letting out another sigh, this one much louder than the first. Still, she did not continue until she had flipped onto her other side and was facing me. "I don't really talk with my dad a whole lot anymore, and with my mom being in France, it makes getting together for the holidays pretty hard, that's all. I've always loved Christmas, but it's just not the same when you don't have the people you love to celebrate it with."

Giving her a small smile, I took my opening and said, "You can always come with me to my parent's house if you want. I'd love to have you there, and I know they would too."

"I — I don't know, Tommy," she muttered, shaking her head as much as she could with it lying on a pillow. "I wouldn't want to impose or anything."

Chuckling, I rolled my eyes and said, "Beautiful, in no way, shape, or form would you be imposing. I know you don't have school, so if you can get the time off from work, I want you to come. I'll even pay to fly you out here myself if I have to."

"That's not necessary," said Kimberly with a laugh of her own. "Christmas is on a Saturday this year, and they're closing the gym from Friday through Monday, sooooo —"

"So you'll come?" I questioned, trying not to sound too overly excited.

"I wouldn't miss it for the world," she replied, kissing me for what felt like an obscenely long amount of time. I don't know how long it was, but we were both breathless when we pulled away, plus Kimberly was biting her lip with that innocent expression that never failed in making her look undeniably sexy. "You have no idea how happy I am right now, Tommy," she went on, her forehead resting against my chest. "This'll be my first Christmas where I'm not alone since I moved to Florida."

I knew firsthand how much she loved Christmas, and it pained a part of me to know she had been forced to spend her most recent ones alone. At the same time, a much larger part of me was overjoyed that that would not be the case this year.

Unfortunately, time always seems to have a way of moving opposite the way you want it to. Before I even knew it, we were standing in the airport, sharing a tearful goodbye outside her terminal, hugging and kissing and promising to call each other every day. And as I walked away after watching her board her plane, I knew that Christmas would not come fast enough.

Such was the way things worked when it came to time…


End file.
